Zootopia: Apocalypse
by Qwerky2
Summary: After a deadly outbreak occurred in zootopia the city is left in ruins, Among the few survivors left. Judy hopps teams up with Nick Wilde and other survivors, to make it in this new world.
1. Arc I, A new world

A flu. That's all they said it was at first. Just a virus. And that's what everyone believed it was. what else could it have been? The doctors didn't know. They had never seen anything like it before . And they sure as hell couldn't explain it.

It was simple enough at first. you got infected and start going insane, Then a fever, followed by seizures Then you died.

But you'd never stay that way for long!

One infection in Zootopia's downtown is what started it, some savage mammal with glowing blue veins, coated with blood was running and screaming through the city centre, biting and mauling who ever was unfortunate enough to cross his eyesight, Turning them into the same monster he was, soon one infectious bite led to another, the insane mammal was put down but the infection still spread throughout.

Soon a state of emergency was called and residents of all districts were under strict rules and curfews as they tried to cover it up, and attempt to contain it. But it was all in vain, as 3 months later society and law/order are diminished, the city and most of the districts residents were reduced to mindless monsters that were reduced to one primal instinct, to kill and eat as much as possible until they eventually die. 3 months later and all that's left is a city destroyed by looters, and the massive amounts of the savage horde.

Among the small gangs of people left, Judy hopps and her new Partner Nick Wilde, a fast, former con-fox and hardened survivor of the apocalypse, will risk it all in hopes of finding a safe haven, in this new world. Can they make it or are they just chasing after shadows?


	2. What remains

Judy Hopps. Survivors journal. day No.1

While scavenging around the city, I found an old journal in a abandoned store I decided to document my journey, not only to keep my mind sane but if I die, hopefully the journal and the tale it tells could offer whoever finds it advice on the wasteland.

It's been 3 months since it all started but it seems like almost yesterday that the world went to hell, I was there when the first infections happened during my first week at the ZPD when I was still just learning the ropes.

The call came in about some psychotic mammal tearing up the city centre, they decided I the rookie, of all people, was one of the people that NEEDED to be there, I guess they really just didn't like me.

When I finally arrived on scene the patient zero had already attacked another officer on scene, a rhino named Mchorn, and a reporter for ZNN, I shot the savage with a sedative gun, only for the infected to turn his attention to me.

That…monster screeched as he rushed towards me, but this time I had no other choice, I had never killed before, but as he came closer I closed my eyes and felt the vibrations of the gun as it fired, when I opened my eyes there was blood rushing out of an open wound on the patients head as he fell to the ground dead, the injured were rushed to a hospital, but they turned, starting the whole cycled started again.

First it started as just a minor panic, we were all convinced it would blow over soon. Just a case of deranged mammals going berserk.

Our hope quickly turned to full-blown panic when the virus spread faster, the CDC then announced the vaccination failed and the disease was incurable.

Rioting and military intervention ran wild as society slowly Fell to ruins at the hands of unknown forces. Sometimes I can still hear the screams of mothers who were getting devoured trying to save their children. Now 3 months later and what remains is a desolate city. I haven't seen any other alive mammals in months, perhaps I'm what remains?

* * *

Judy finished writing her journal entry, capped her pen and closed the dirty, neon red journal and put it in her bag, she had been scavenging around the city center taking anything useful, after hours of searching and all she found was just a journal, she worried she would have to eat flesh just to survive.

The time was getting late, and the sun was starting to hide behind the horizon leaving only a small trace of light, barely enough to see 2 feet in front of her, she walked down the roads of what was once central zootopia, abandoned cars, garbage and corpses were all that decorated the once vibrant cities.

There wasn't any sign of nearby infected so she figured this was as good a place as any to rest for a while.

She settled on a metal bench on the sidewalk, after clearing the dust off she laid down on the cold metal seat, using her backpack as an improvised pillow, it was the farthest thing from comfortable but it was still better than the ground.

She rolled onto her back and grabbed a picture from her pocket, taken before she left her hometown of bunnyburrow, if she knew about the impending Apocalypse, she'd have stayed with her family.

"I'll be back home with you soon, I promise." Judy thought to herself gazing upon the aged picture.

As she lay her head down on her pack, she could hear the steady beating of her heart which was very comforting, combined with the beautiful sight of the night sky filled with stars that seemed to shimmer like diamonds under a light, Judy quickly felt weary and fell into a blissful sleep.

Some time later Judy was taken out of her deep sleep, to an awful stench, one of rotting flesh which she was all too familiar with, getting closer and closer.

Judys eyes flew open as she scanned her immediate area looking for the infected, she used her superior hearing to listen out for any footsteps. From behind her she heard the patting of feet on concrete. She turned her head and saw a black shadow about as large as the bench she was on.

She approached the infected who had his sights locked firmly on Judy. She drew her arm back to attack but was grabbed from behind by another infected, the sudden shift of momentum and the element of surprise made the old knife slip out of Judys hand and onto the ground behind her.

As Judy scrambled to the ground trying to retrieve her weapon, the zombie pounced on her and pinned her on the ground by her shoulders.

His mouth was wide open ready to devour the helpless rabbit, she closed her eyes ready to accept her fate. Just before the zombies mouth found Judy's skull a knife pierced the back of it's head. The blood dripping on Judy's face made her look back up.

The knife slid out of the zombies mouth as it fell over dead, this gave Judy a better view of her savior, it was hard to see but he seemed normal,with what looked like a rifle strapped to his back, the stock sticking outward towards the sky.

"You ok, you're not one of them?" The survivor asked in a calm voice holding out his hand.

Judy accepted his hand and got back on her feet. "You're not dead!?" Judy was grateful to see another live mammal.

The figure removed his hood revealing his red fur, scarred muzzle, and pointed canine ears. "I look like a zombie to you?" He said as he handed Judy her knife back.

"I guess not, you're just the only other live mammal I've seen in months." Judy apologized not wanting to offend this new mammal.

"I'm Nick by the way" he said in a friendly voice.

"I'm Judy" She replied grateful to be alive. "You saved my life!"

"Don't mention it, I got a survival camp not too far from here we have plenty of supplies and beds, you should tag along, you need a safer place to rest." Nick urged Judy to follow him there.

Judy agreed to follow him there having nowhere else to go, as they set off Judy wondered if she could trust this new ally, but reasoned that if it meant no more sleeping on a bench it was worth the risk of trusting someone. Even if they had just met.


	3. What remains pt2

How much farther is your camp?" Judy complained as her feet ached attempting to match Nicks quick pace.

"We still have a ways to go, but you'll still be alive when we get there, I promise" Nick replied grabbing Judy's arm, giving support to the weak bunny.

As Nick had been leading Judy to camp, the impact of not having food or hydration for days was starting to take its toll on Judy, her stomach wouldn't stop growling and her tongue was drier than sahara square, her pace slowed to a crawl and her body was starting to shut down.

"I don't suppose you have any water or anything" Judy said between shallow breaths. "I could really use it."

"Nope, sorry its all back at base and I used the last of my rations last night before we met" Nick stopped to let Judy rest.

"How long have you been without?" Nick asked as Judy sat on the ground panting.

"Few days at least, I don't feel too well." Judy wiped beads of sweat from her forehead.

He pointed to a variety of abandoned buildings and stores. "Maybe one of these old buildings has something useful."

"Sure, it's worth a try I guess." Judy slowly rose back to her feet.

There was an old mini mart just across the street that only looked half destroyed. The rotted wood door was locked and a sign hung from the middle of the old wooden door "Closed due to recent infection"

Nick tore the sign down and busted the dusty window with his elbow. He reached in and unlocked the door and opened it.

Inside the store was dark, save for the morning light giving an eerie orange glow.

Nick pulled out a handgun and handed it to Judy "You know how to use one of these right?" He asked as he held the gun by the barrel.

"Its one of the first things I learned at the academy." Judy took the small gun from Nick's hands and loaded some spare ammo he gave her.

"The academy?" Nick asked as they both stepped into the derelict store "The police academy?"

"Yea I was a cop but not for long, all this started on my first week" Judy rummaged trough the shelves looking for anything useful.

"Damn, that's too bad all that training to protect and serve, wasted." Nick threw old cans and cardboard boxes off the shelves. "I was never really on the right side of the law before this, made a living hustling."

"But you're a better person now, right?" Judy made sure she wasn't traveling with a bandit.

"Yea, don't worry i gave it up after this all started and I founded my camp. " He reassured Judy.

Judy cleared off the last of the shelves, only to find nothing but dust and empty boxes. "Dammit, nothing!" Judy used some of the last of her strength to express her disappointment.

"You know if I were a store clerk wanting to hide his supply, I'd use the back room." Nick pointed to the back of the store at a metal door labeled "employees only."

Nick walked up to the door with his weapon drawn as he slowly opened the door and pointed the barrel at whatever could be hiding in there.

What was inside however almost made the duo's hearts stop in its place.

Inside was a lit room filled with bags of supplies. They couldn't believe their luck as they walked in and started opening the bags. In one was various medicines and even medical tools. One bag was opened and an ammo stash enough for a small army poured out which they graciously stocked up on. Finally they opened the last bag, it was filled with fresh fruit without even a mark or spot on it.

"Nick, isn't there something off about all of this" Judy asked as she started to get a weird feeling.

"You mean the fact that there's somehow fresh fruit and ammo in an abandoned Mini-Mart?" Nick replied knowing this was too good to be true.

"Don't you think this is a problem?" A females voice said from behind Nick and Judy.

Turning to face the voice they were greeted by an African civet. She was about as tall as Nick, if not an inch taller dressed in a grey hoodie and bloodied jeans, with blue eyes hiding behind a white pair of glasses. She threatened the duo with a handgun.

"Hey, put that down we're not a threat to you!" Nick demanded to the stranger.

"Not a threat right, Then why were you stealing my stuff?" She asked as she wrapped her finger around the trigger of her gun.

"Yours?" Judy asked "This stuff was just sitting out for the taking!"

"Yea, bags full of supplies just conveniently sitting out." The civet added a hint of sarcasm.

"We're sorry we were just on our way to our safe zone when my partner over here became weak and needed food, we found this stuff laying around but we didn't stop to think it could belong to somebody" Nick explained hoping the civet would have at least some mercy left in her.

"Safe zone?" The civet became more aggressive. "Are you from the stadium across town?"

"No, my camps downtown." Nick tried talking the civet down.

The civet saw the exhausted bunny. "You said your partner was weak?"

"Yes, that's why we need to take just a little bit of this for her." Nick explained.

"Let me join you and you can keep most of it for you and your camp." The civet offered handing a carrot from the bag to Judy.

Nick thought over it. The thought of free supplies and ammo was too nice too pass up and they would gain a team mate. But there was also the chance of betrayal or who ever this person was on the run from showing up and killing them all But nicks slight optimism got the best of him.

"Fine, but we'll be watching you" Nick warned her as he accepted her.

"Thank you you wont regret this!" The civet said as she headed for the exit.

"Not so fast." Nick grabbed her by the arm, stopping her in her tracks. "Your gun empty it and hand it to me." Nick demanded.

"Fine." She said as she unloaded the clip, unchambered the bullet and handed her gun to nick.

"I'm Nick." He introduced himself putting the empty weapon in one of the old bags.

"My names Judy, what do we call you?" Judy asked as she started to gain her strength back.

"Right, didn't get a chance to introduce myself properly my names Cecilia But my friends or at least the ones I had just call me Celia."

"We need to get going then Celia, If we wait too long the Lurkers could swarm us." Nick said grabbing a bag of supplies and heading into the front to lead the small team.

Back on the streets Nick continued to lead the team back to camp. Celia didn't speak a word and kept to herself which nick didn't know if it meant she was harmless or a silent psychopath.

As they rounded a corner an infected honey badger jumped out his mouth filled with white foam ready to feast. Judy took aim with her handgun but as she was about to shoot Nick put his paw on the top of the gun and pushed it down as if to say "I got this."

Nick took a defensive position, ran up and kicked the badgers knee shattering the rotted brittle bone and knocking the zombie to the ground where nick finished it off with his knife. Nick checked for more around the corner.

"You've done this before haven't you?" Celia finally spoke up.

"Plenty of times, its quick and saves ammo." Nick pressed onward with the team in tow.

Nick was taking Judy down roads she hadn't yet gone down, far from her usual spots where she scavenged and slept. If only she found a place like this sooner.

Some time later when the sun finally crowned over the horizon They had arrived at the promised safe spot. They walked up to a massive, towering wall that was made of various bits of wood and sheet metal, with the initals N.T painted on the front in yellow and black paint.

Guards were posted on a balcony above the main gate wielding various scoped rifles and shotguns, which was a rare find in these times.

As they approached the gate Nick gave a hand signal to a gate keeper above who pressed a button to open the gates. As they walked in Judy felt a sense of security and community. The settlement was filled with many happy, thriving survivors almost like the old days before the infection broke out where predator and prey would live together in harmony. It was truly a paradise among Hell.

"Welcome to New-Topia!" Nick said introducing Judy and Celia to his town.


	4. New-topia

Zombie survival Journal entry day No.2

After almost getting eaten by an infected last night, I was saved by a fox named Nick, not many can be trusted since the outbreak started but he seemed to trust me almost instantly, I guess he hasn't lost his faith in the living yet, he offered to take me back to his survivors camp when he saw my dire situation.

As he led me to his camp, the effects of exhaustion set in, We found supplies in an old store but they were already owned by another survivor, A civet named Celia who said she was on the run from some "Bad People." we weren't sure if we could trust her but when she offered supplies in return for passage to a safe place, we took the risk, she seems docile so far but we still cant give her our full trust, at least not yet.

When we arrived at the camp it was almost a paradise, the town was well structured and the people were very welcoming, it was almost like the old days where predator and prey could co-exist without eating each other.

They offered us food, and even clothes that made it harder for zombies to bite you. I was then taken to the survivors quarters which was a fancy word for old, repurposed hotel. I was taken to one of the rooms with working lights, a window with a good view of the city, and a bed that feels as if ive been swallowed whole by a cloud made of feathers. I could get used to this.

* * *

Judy stabbed a period at the end of the last word of her journal entry with her pen, she checked for errors and drew bad doodles of the events written not as if she had anything better to do.

She put the pen and journal on a nearby nightstand.

Judy looked around her new room decorated only with various oil paintings, hanging on plain white walls, empty and slightly boring but still better than the wasteland outside the gates, she lied down comfortably in her bed and started resting her eyes and daydreaming. For the first time in what felt like ages she could finally take it easy.

Elsewhere in the camp however other troubles were brewing.

Nick had just got done showing Celia around the camp, and to her quarters. He started to chat with others to see if anything needed doing.

Nick was halfway in a conversation with one of his survivors, when a guard on the front posts called for him in an urgent tone.

"Nick, we got someone here near the gate, sayin he's looking for the leader of the settlement" The guard yelled down to Nick, who grabbed his gun and went to the gates.

Nick motioned to three other guards to follow him, he opened the gate and saw 2 survivors, A Rabbit with gray fur and black stripes on his face and ears, dressed in a worn tuxedo and a Vixen dressed in pre-apocalypse military fatigues. The Vixen had her gun fully drawn, while the rabbit had no weapon and a calmer demeanor.

"Can I help you?" Nick asked with his hand inches from his gun in case anything went awry.

The Rabbit stepped forward, he was a little younger than most others but looked like he had seen his fair share of violence with scars to prove it.  
"Hello, you the leader here?" He asked in a matured, yet relaxed voice.

"I'm the closest thing we have" Nick said relaxing his nerves and taking his hand slightly away from his gun, but he kept an eye out for anything weird.

"I wont keep you long, My names Jack, Jack savage, I got a group up in the old stadium across town looking for a runaway, A Civet I believe, blue eyes, white glasses, named Cecilia maybe you've seen her?" The rabbit replied.

As soon as Nick heard the description his eyes widened, these were the people Celia was on the run from and they didn't look entirely happy, he tried to keep his cool to keep suspicion low, but he was having trouble doing so.

"I Haven't seen her" Nick lied still trying to make it sound truthful. "What did she do that was so bad?"

"She stole our supplies, food, ammo and medicine" Jack Explained.

"I'll keep an eye out." Nick said in a hurry trying to end the encounter as quick as possible.

"Good, if you see her bring her to the old stadium, we'll be happy to compensate you for your help." Jack said turning and walking away from the camp with his guard following him.

As soon as the small group was out of his sight Nick ordered extra security to watch the gate in case they came back, After this Nick went to warn Celia of the group looking for her. He jogged up the stairs leading to her room and swung open Celia's door, startling the unprepared Civet.

"Celia, there was a group of people looking for you at the gate." Nick said as he shut the door behind him.

"Who was it, What did they look like, are they here?" Celia asked these questions In a hurried and quick pace.

"Calm down, they're not here anymore, it was just a Rabbit, and a Vixen." Nick said.

Celia's face turned pale at the mention of the rabbit, she knew it was only a matter of time.

"Was one of them named Jack Savage?" Celia calmed herself to avoid panicking.

"Yea, he was." Nick admitted "They're saying you stole from them?"

"I escaped his camp and stole some supplies i needed, but I had to Jack Savage may seem friendly at first, but in reality he's a psyco, he runs his camp like a damn dictatorship, and he hunts those who run off, Like ME!" Celia explained "he's scouting around, If he finds out i'm here we are all fucked."

"I knew something was off about him, if he's as dangerous as you claim Maybe it'll be safer if you left, there may be another survivor camp out there who'll accept you." Nick suggested.

"I've wandered the wastes for weeks and never found other camps but you're right, I don't wanna endanger your people, I'll leave at night to be safe." Celia said grabbing supplies she'll need.

After a few hours of anxiously waiting, the daylight finally fell, and the darkness of the night engulfed the land. While others were sleeping, Celia was leaving, she was lead out of the gates of New-topia by Nick, the gates opened with a loud creak as Nick and Celia approached them.

"Y'know, you're not banished you can return anytime." Nick stopped Celia before she left. "New-topia will welcome you."

"Thanks, for everything" Celia said with a smile "You're not like most assholes I've met nowadays, we haven't known each other for long, but you're alright Nick." She said giving a fist bump to Nick before walking out of the safety of the metal gates and back into the dangerous city.


	5. Second encounter

Hours later, after Celia left New-topia and got back out into the city.

The full moon was perched high in the night sky as Celia walked down the old abandoned streets, clinging to the darkness of the sidewalks and back alleys.

She couldn't however shake the feeling of being stalked by something she couldn't see and it grew with each step.

As Celia rounded a street corner she heard what sounded like footsteps slowly shambling closer, she got her gun out ready for a fight, when she heard another set of footsteps followed by sounds of groaning, her fears were confirmed she was being stalked by the undead.

She kept her ears open for anything, she heard the sounds coming from behind her, groans and moans getting louder and closer, she turned to see not one, but four zombies, one wolf, weasel, badger and sloth. Their empty eyes glowing red, torn clothing and flesh adorning their already broken body, their growls growing louder as they spotted their next prey.

Celia opened fire and hit the tallest target, the wolf Zombie, in the head. The noise then drew the rest of the zombies to Cecelia like moths to a flame.

Celia fired shot after shot but due to the targets moving fast, it was hard to hit them, her clip ran dry after she fired the last bullet in the clip.

As she reached for the next clip in her belt, an infected weasel almost pounced on her. Celia managed to dodge the infected savage weasel and stomped his head in as he tried to pick himself off the ground.

She finally found spare seconds to reload and faced her last target a sloth zombie, shambling ever so slowly towards her making extremely slow groans, Celia rolled her eyes as she wouldn't waste ammo on such an easy target, she walked up and gently shoved the sloth to the ground and stomped his head in as well.

Celia caught her breath as she stood in the blood soaked streets near the corpses.

Celias head perked up as she heard what sounded like someone clapping their paws together.

"Well done Celia, you're shooting has gotten better since last time." A male voice called out, one that froze Celia where she stood.

She turned to the source of the sound, to see a familiar rabbit with a team of about 3 others stepping into the dim moonlight, right across the street opposite of her.

"How did you find me?" Celia panicked as the team approached her with Savage leading the pack.

"We heard the gunshots across the street during our scavenging." Savage said pulling out his gun and pointing it at Celia. "Now that we found you you're gonna come with us, you have some crimes to answer for."

"Not a chance in Hell savage!" Celia exclaimed, pointing her gun, Jacks team responded with pulling out their weapons as well.

Celia knew she couldn't survive a 4 on one conflict, she shot four rounds near the enemies heads to suppress them and quickly bolted down the street while their heads we're down.

While Jack and his team weren't distracted for long and were following close. Celia ran faster and faster, taking many turns and shortcuts, eventually she had put a considerable distance put between her pursuers, but it wouldn't stay that way for long, she only knew one place left to turn to, it was risky, but she had to go back to the gates of New-topia.  
-

Back in New-topia.

Judy woke from her rest with a long yawn, she must've dozed off after not having a proper sleeping schedule for over 4 months. She heard knocking on her door before the door opened revealing Nick as he invited himself in.

"Hey, just seeing if you're ok." Nick said taking a seat at the edge of the bed.

"I'm just fine, thanks to you." Judy said rubbing her eyes and getting closer to Nick.

"When we first met, why were you alone?" Nick asked trying to start a conversation, "what happened to your group?"

"I didn't have a group, I'm not even from here" Judy said "I'm from the burrows, this all happened a few days after I arrived, so I didn't have anyone to turn to."

"You've been all by yourself through this?" Nick asked.

"Like i said, i didn't have anyone to turn to, i was like a fish outta water." Judy said.

"Well, you have us now and you're welcome to stay here, as long as you need, we could always use another survivor." Nick offered.

"Thank you, it's so good to know mammals like you still exist." Judy said with a smile, grateful for Nick's hospitality.

As Nick was about to respond the door to judys room swung open once more, it was a New-Topia guard with gun fully drawn and out of breath as if he rushed there in a hurry.

"We got a problem." The guard said between shallow breathes.

"What Is it, a visitor?" Nick said springing off the bed and to his team mate.

"No, it's the woman from earlier, the one who was on the run." The guard said urging Nick to follow, with Judy grabbing her gun and following right behind them.  
They returned to the front gates, the gates were opened to reveal a familiar Civet, looking nervous.

"Celia?" Nick asked "What are you doing here, is something wrong?" Nick said leading Celia into the camp.

"Quick, close the gates, they found me!" Celia said in a panic.

"Who did?" Nick asked, Praying in the back of his mind that it wasn't who he thought it was.

"i think we're about to find out." Judy said pointing to a shadowy figure in the distance.

There was a small figure, followed by many others of varying sizes. As they got closer Jack savages face became visible from the low moonlight.

"Oh fuck." was all Celia could let out as she knew, this probably wouldn't end well for either side.

"Hello again, Fox." Jack said in a much more threatening tone than the last encounter.

"You again!?" Nick yelled as Jack approached closer and closer to the gate.

"You fucking liar, you had her with you this whole time!" Jack yelled "We followed her here, you opened the gates to her, You were harboring that, thief." Jack said inching closer.

"Thief?" Judy asked turning to Celia with a look of disapproval. "Is that true, you stole from these people?"

"She's not a thief." Nick assured Judy "And by the things she told me about you, i'd have done the same!"

"Regardless you still have what we're looking for, so why not just hand her over?" Jack said getting close to Nicks face.

"I don't think so." Nick growled. "Now step away from the camp, NOW!" Nick threatened Jack with his gun, with the other new-topia guards joining him.

"Woah hey take it easy, it doesn't have to go down like this!" Judy said trying to calm tensions, but they fell on deaf ears.

"Think this through Nick just hand her over and this won't turn bloody." Jack said as tensions rose between the groups.

"How about you go away and I won't have my guards open fire!" Nick threatened.

"I don't think so." Jack pulled a radio from his back pocket. "See this, if you fire so much as one shot and I'll get my guards down here and see who's bigger." Jack came back with a threat of his own.

"We can't give him another inch." Judy tried talking sense into nick.

"Don't be stupid, you can't reason with him!" Celia joined in.

Nick noticed how better armed jacks team was and the size of his army outnumbering Nicks, if conflict broke out Nicks team, and settlement could easily been taken down. After thinking it through he regretfully made his decision.

"I'm sorry Celia." Nick lowered his weapon. "Everyone, weapons down we can't fight them." He said turning to his faction who obeyed, and lowered their weapons.

"What!" Celia exclaimed "But you said-" Celia was cut off by Nick.

"I know what I said, but it's not worth anyone's life." Nick said apologetically.

Jack seemed pleased and holstered his weapon. "Smart fox, now tie them up and bring them back to camp!" Jack yelled to his faction.

"Wait, what do you mean them?" Judy asked as jacks faction approached both Nick and Judy with bundles of rope.

"Yea, What happened to us not being harmed?" Nick asked as Jacks faction started tying up Celia.

"I said things won't turn bloody and they're not, but you lied to me and I don't take kindly to liars." Jack answered.

Nick saw members of New-topia raise their weapons to attack. "Don't open fire!" Nick demanded. "I leave my second in command in charge of the camp til I return." Nick said as his team obeyed.

Jacks soldiers then went to tying up Judy and Nick, they kicked them in their legs, and brought them to their knees, disarmed any weapons and tied up their hands.

"You can't do this!" Judy yelled as she was led into line at gunpoint.

Jack then radioed his squad at his camp and requested a transport vehicle as it was, to quote Jack himself. "Going to be a long ride home.


	6. Ties that bind

**Author note, Well, here's chapter 6, I hope you enjoy, and remember to Fave the story, Follow the story, and review as I love to hear your feedback on my first story.**

After waiting for a while an old moving truck from Jacks faction pulled in at the gates of New-topia ready to take their new prisoners.

The rusted metal door screeched as jack opened it while his soldiers led Nick and his team in there at gunpoint. Nick gave an assuring nod to his guards who took a hint and walked back into the gates.

After they got in the heavy metal door slammed shut leaving Judy, Nick, and Celia standing in pitch darkness. The three survivors were knocked down on top of each other as the momentum of the truck starting to drive knocked them off of their balance and right onto each other.

As the truck picked up a steady speed they were able to sit straight up and sit back on the walls of the truck, the musty air inside the truck was almost thick enough to choke on.

"Well, now what?" Judy asked, as she realized they didn't have a plan beyond that.

"We gotta get out of here." Celia said slightly panicking as the truck picked up speed.

"How exactly are we gonna do that?" Judy asked defensively. "We have no weapons, Its pitch black in here and I think they'll notice a door opening and us jumping out."

"Well we got to do something, we can't just let this happen." Celia said twisting at the ropes that bound her hand, which gave her an idea.

Celia started using her sharp teeth to attempt to bite through the rope almost breaking one of her teeth, she then struggled and pulled at the rope until she felt the knot slipping, with a little effort and minutes of struggling, the ties slipped right off her wrists and to the floor.

"These ties ain't shit." Celia said as her hands were freed.

"You untied yourself?" Judy was suprised. "Maybe we do have some hope."

"Damn right we do now come here let's get yours off too." Celia said to Nick and Judy.

Judy and Nick followed Celias voice, she then went to work untying Judy and Nicks binds that slipped off just as easily.

"Great, Now what?" Judy asked as her binds fell to the floor.

"When they open the door, we jump them, take their gun and shoot our way out." Celia said.

"Great plan except the fact they outnumber us" Judy argued. "You expect them to just sit there as we gun them down?"

"Trust me, I'd rather be gunned down fighting than be trapped in Jacks camp again." Celia retorted.

They noticed the truck started slowing down and heard Jack say something about being close to the camp. Judy, Nick and Celia stood near the door waiting for it to open. However, the truck hit the brakes hard and sent all three survivors slamming into the door with a loud thud. They sat on the hard metal floor of the truck holding their aching heads, the door opened and a blinding light and three silhouettes stood before them.

A thought passed Celias mind to follow her plan and fight them, but the thought quickly disappeared when she saw the assault rifle in Jacks hands.

"Hey how the Hell did you break your restraints?" Jack asked as he noticed Nick and his teams binds were undone.

"What can I say your people can barely tie their boots let alone someone's hands." Celia snapped when she saw Jack.

Jack took little notice of Celias snide comment. "Skye, Take them to the yard." Jack called to his teammate, a vixen with white fur and Military fatigues.

"Come on I'll show you to where you'll stay" Skye said in a soft friendly voice as the team stood up and followed her.

"Skye." Celia said to Skye. "The only guard here I can tolerate."

"Celia, didn't think I'd see you back here, especially with friends." Skye replied to Celia.

"Guess its a good thing there's a friendly soul here." Nick said observing Celias interaction with Skye.

They were walked through the old Animalia stadium, a giant fence laced with Razorwire covered the perimeter of the arena ensuring nothing got in or out.

They walked through the gates and were lead to a small fenced area outside in the very back, with only a few beds and spare water to accommodate the very basic survival needs.

"Y'all better rest, tomorrow you're being put to work." Skye said leaving the survivors to their own device.

Having no other choice They all walked to an individual mattress that lay on the floor with a thin sheet to use as covers.

"You don't mind sharing a bed right?" Nick asked Judy.

"No, but then again we don't have a choice." Judy replied as they laid down with the cold winds of the night bearing down on them, nick and Judy laid close together to share body heat.

the mattresses they laid on had to be at least 10 years old. But eventually the ambience of a crackling fire and bugs chirping keeping the air sound lulled them to sleep like natures lullaby, they were finally able to fall into a semi-deep sleep.

Hours later when the sun was barely peaking over the horizon the sound of a gun firing woke them which made every survivor jolt upwards.

"Get up, all of you!" Jack yelled with his gun in the air, barrel still smoking, with Skye close behind as Nick and his weary teammates stood to their feet.

Jack put his gun back in the holster. "Good, now you three are here cause you have each committed crimes against my faction." His eyes shot over to Celia "From stealing, and harboring a thief" Jacks eyes then met with Nicks.

"But I believe in second chances, I believe you should be given a second chance to help me find it in my heart to forgive you and you can start by working and pulling your weight." Jack explained. "Every one here works to make our place more secure. Now you, Fox, Go see Doug near the entrance, you're on guard, if I remember correctly, you have experience In warding off others from camp."

"It's Nick by the way." Nick said taking offence to being just a Fox.

Jack pointed to Judy "Name?" Jack demanded.

"I'm Judy."

"You're with Skye loading ammo in the backstage area." Jack assigned Judy.

Skye motioned for Nick and Judy to follow her to their jobs.

"And you Celia are coming with me." Jack said threateningly.

Jack took Cecilia to his office, the previous stadium managers office, the room had nothing but a wood desk, two chairs, a window over looking the camp and a black chair in the corner to the very right, coated with congealed blood, Celias nerves shook when she realized that this was the torture chair that everyone used to talk about in the camp, but Celia never believed it was real, until now.

Jack took Celia by the collar of her shirt and threw her into the torture chair and strapped her hands into the armrests.

Celia desperately struggled to break free, but to no avail.

"Nothing smart to say now?" Jack taunted "Now, those supplies you stole, where are they!?" Jack yelled.

"Go to hell." Was all Celia managed to utter as she started fearing for her life

Jack drew his hand back, and back-handed Celia knocking her glasses to the ground, and leaving a mark on her face, Celia fought back tears forming in her eyes.

"Come on Celia, we can end this right now, or we'll do this all night!" Jack yelled.

"Those supplies weren't even yours, you stole them from innocent survivors." Celia said as she mustered up enough nerve to look Jack in the eye.

"They weren't stolen, those people woulda died anyway, we gotta focus on us." Jack said "Its called survival."

"You're a psychopath, you can pretend all you want but i know what it truly is!" Celia yelled.

Jack was beginning to lose his patience and gave Celia another firm slap across the face, this time bloodying her nose a little. "That's not the point now, I''ll ask again, where are those supplies!?" Jack got in Celias face.

"They're gone!" Celia lied, hoping Jack would buy it, as blood ran from her nose to the tip of her lip.

"Gone, they can't be, how can three bags be gone, you were the only..." Jack then remembered the settlement of New-topia. "They're at that settlement aren't they, Cecilia?" Jack yelled.

Celia knew better than to lie to Jack, he always had a method of telling fact from lies, she knew it would only be worse on her, she nodded, silently admitting they were there.

"Good, now you're gonna sit here, if it turns out you're lying, well we'll just have to make things more difficult, maybe some solitude will gain you some perspective!" Jack said leaving Celia strapped into the torture chair.

Meanwhile Skye was loading Ammo with judy in a back room far from the main camp. The smell of metal and wood lingered in the air inside the backstage area. There was a wooden table with two boxes, one labeled clips and one labeled ammo.

"Ok you're with me today all you gotta do is load these clips, like this." Skye said taking a seat at the table and turned reaching for a bullet to load into a handgun clip, she turned back to see Judy already halfway done with one.

"I grew up on a farm I've been loading guns since I could walk." Judy said loading the last bullet in a clip and setting it on the table in front of them.

Skye shrugged and continued loading. "So did you enjoy your first night?" Skye asked trying to start conversation, but knew the answer in the back of her mind.

"It wasn't pleasant but better than being out in the open I guess." Judy replied.

"Well that's the spirit I guess." Skye said caught a little off guard by the optimistic answer. "I know its not great and I hate putting people there but that's where Jack keeps his trouble makers, no offense hon." Skye said trying not to make Judy uncomfortable.

"You seem really Nice for someone who works for Jack." Judy said taking note of Skyes kindness.

"Well this don't leave the room but I don't like Jack either, he offered me a place to stay but I know he's not a nice person when Cecelia left I had half a mind to go with her but the odds looked stacked against her and I thought we'd never make it, Now look what happened." Skye said with regret.

"Maybe if we ever get an escape plan, you could join us." Judy said as she finished another clip.

As Skye opened her mouth to reply a radio she keeps nearby went off. "Skye, me and a scavenging team are heading out, make sure the Bunny and her fox finish their work." Jack savage said to Skye.

"Alright I will, Skye out." Skye clicked her radio off.

Skye walked over to Judy "Listen if you're serious about escaping, I'll finish up here and i'll call your friend down from the front gates, we can use this time to think of a plan." Skye said. "Don't waste this, now go."

Judy ran through the camp, back to the fenced area where Nick waited for her.

"Thank god." Nick said happy that Judy was ok. "Now that you're here, i've got an idea for our plan, Your friend Skye also told me about Celia, and we're not leaving her." Nick said revealing a piece of paper with "Plan" written on the top.

Judy and Nick quickly went to work, devising an escape plan, hoping that Skye could be a useful asset to the group, if she was truly on their side.


	7. Escape plan: Alpha

Judy and Nick looked down at the blank sheet soon to be the plan that frees them or sets them up for life. After Brainstorming for an hour, a plan was starting to emerge between the two survivors, starting with the end in mind would be best.

"Where will we go after we get out of here?" Nick asked as he paced the floors. "He knows where New-Topia is, he'll just come right back to us."

"I was thinking of escaping to the bunny burrows countryside, my family lives down there and they might be more than willing to help me and my friends, there's less city, and Jack won't find us in the thick forests of the country side." Judy said writing the Idea down.

Nick did like the idea of a countryside, the Isolation, and bountiful amount of land would prove useful to their survival. But as always there was doubts and concerns lingering in the back of Nick's mind.

"Alright, sounds good but will a colony of Bunnies take kindly to predators like me?" Nick asked. "And how do we know it doesn't have just as many Undead as Zootopia, rabbits do have tons of offspring that could turn do they not?"

"Don't worry about stereotype prejudice We have Guns, a Pulse and supplies, in these times you'll be their best friends." Judy answered. "Plus my family is full of gun nuts and farmers, they had to have figured out some way to survive this better than we did."

Nick finally agreed to the idea as their end-game, not like he had a better idea They then went to work deciding their next move.

"Ok First we need to get into their supply Cache, I've seen it while I was at the front gate it's unlocked by a key." Nick said. "A Badger guard has the key and rations out food for the day, if we get his key we can get the supplies we need."

"Hey You know how to pick pockets right?" Judy asked as an idea formed in her head.

"Why, cause I'm a Fox, you assume I can just pick pockets?" Nick asked taking slight offence to Judy's question.

"Well, can you?" Judy asked.

"Yes." Nick said defeated. "But not cause i'm just a Sly fox."

"Ok I get it sorry, I was just thinking we draw the guard to us and when he's not looking you snatch the key." Judy said.

"Why not just jump him?" Nick said pounding his fist in the palm of his paw "It'd be quicker and way more fun."

"No we can't draw that attention to ourselves, they'll eventually know he's disappeared he is the rations guy after all." Judy shut Nicks plan down.

Just as Nick was about to suggest another idea, he was interrupted by the squeaky sound of the gates behind him opening.

There were footsteps quickly approaching them. Nick, fearing the worst case scenario that Savage was behind him, panicked, without even a second to think he went with the first thought to cross his mind. Nick took the plan and shoved it into Judy's shirt to quickly hide it. Shocked, Judy smacked Nick hard across the face as her face turned red.

"Did I come at a bad time?" A females voice said as the gate slammed shut.

Turning to the source of the voice, they saw only the White Vixen Skye, standing there awkwardly. "I'll leave you two be if you need some time, no judgements here."

At this point even Nicks face was turning Red, (Well, more red technically.) "N-no this isn't- I thought you were Jack and we..." Nick stumbled over his words embarrassed.

"Ok." Skye drew out the word, cutting off Nick. "Anyway Listen, I considered your offer to escape with you and I came to tell you I'm in just tell me when we start."

"Alright if you're serious you're in but I swear double cross us or rat us out to Jack and you'll regret it." Nick said in a serious tone, trying to suppress his previously embarrassed tone.

"Trust me I've been here longer than I've wanted to I won't blow another chance to escape I'll come back tomorrow morning to help with your plan til then Jack will be back soon and you don't want to be caught up past dark they're strict on that here." Skye said taking her leave and closing the heavy gates behind her.

After Skye left, Judy and Nick looked at each other in awkward silence with Judy looking at Nick with a less than pleased face. Nick decided to speak up and break the silence.

"Hey listen, about earlier I'm really sorry I just thought-" Nicks apology was cut off by Judy putting her finger over his lip.

"No,we will never speak of this again." Judy said shushing Nick and pulling the plan out of her shirt and shoving it in Nicks paws.

Nick sighed and pocketed the plan as he and Judy fell back into the small mattresses on the ground, Judy slept far from nick facing away from him. it was still as uncomfortable but they both had gotten used to uncomfortable sleeping arrangement.

* * *

Elsewhere.

Jack and his scavenging team had just returned from their mission The supplies Cecilia had claimed were gone were actually stored away in New-Topia, Mostly untouched. Jack also took some other New-Topian supplies with him, not like they would need it after what Jack did to them while scavenging. They pulled the faction trucks into the camp and started unloading their cargo.

As soldiers carried in supplies, Jack walked up to the door leading into the room Celia was being kept hostage in, he turned the metal knob and opened the door letting a beam of light into the dark room. Celia was sound asleep still strapped to the torture chair.

"WAKE UP!" Jack yelled which made Celia nearly jump out of her skin getting a small laugh out of Jack.

"You have no idea how funny that is to do." Jack laughed "How'd you sleep by the way?" Jack asked mockingly.

"Strapped to a chair you son of a bitch!" Celia snapped.

"Yep, that's usually the answer I always get nowadays" Jack leaned up against his desk "We found those supplies in that settlement, the ones you claimed had vanished, You told half the truth though when you admitted they were there though, So tell you what, do me a small favor and I'll set you free." Jack said.

Cecilia was almost too scared to ask what favor Jack had in mind, but she still heard "What favor?" Slip out of her mouth.

"If you give me a small kiss I will let you out and back to your friends." Jack offered.

"You can't be serious." Celia said nervously. she saw Jack had a serious face that he wasn't Joking. "Fine." Celia said with a sigh not like she had a choice, she was strapped in a chair after all and as much as she didn't want to do this, freedom did seem like an acceptable trade.

Jack gently took hold of her face and his lips locked with Celia's for a split second before a knock at the door quickly interrupted the moment, Celia looked up and thanked God for this miracle from above.

Jack turned to see Skye standing there in the door innocently. "For Fox sake how many times am I gonna walk in on people tonight." Skye thought to herself.

"Oh, hello Skye is something wrong?" Jack asked trying to act Normal or at least his definition of normal.

"The boys downstairs need your help a Zombie somehow got through one of our defenses." Skye said to get jack out of the room.

"I thought I told those morons to check the defenses before we left." Jack said before he ran to aid his faction, as soon as he left Skye walked over and undid the cloth straps keeping Cecelia hostage, as soon as they were undone Celia quickly thanked Skye.

"Listen, don't ask questions just run back down to Nick and Judy back in the gated area I'll take the heat, just go." Skye said urging Celia to run.

Cecelia obeyed and ran all the way through the camp, making sure not to run into any guards or god forbid Jack. After running through the huge stadium Celia finally reached the Gated area, she quickly swung the gates open and slammed them, which of course woke both Nick and Judy from their shallow rests.

"Celia?" Nick said getting up to greet her, with Judy following close.

After everything she went through with Jack, Celia was so glad to see a friendly face. She reached out her arms, wrapped them around Nick and hugged him, she never was one for showing emotions in this way but she was just so grateful to be able to see the only people she could trust these days.

Nick was taken back by this, but accepted the hug. "It's good to see you too, Celia." Nick said breaking the hug.

"Not gonna lie, I thought you wouldn't come back for a while." Judy said.

"No such luck I guess." Celia bantered.

"What happened, where were you?" Nick asked concerned.

"That asshole Jack strapped me to a damn chair and started hitting me, then he made me Kiss him just so I could leave." Celia explained.

Nick and Judy were surprised by this, Celia had said Jack was a psyco, but Nick always thought it was an exaggeration. "Don't worry Celia, we have a plan, and come tomorrow we're putting it in action."

"But for right now the best thing for us is rest." Judy said "Come on we have a long day ahead tomorrow."

"Sounds good to me, beats sleeping in a chair." Celia said taking a spot on the nearest bed. she closed her eyes and quickly zoned off to sleep, Her only release of this dark world, something which she savored every second.


	8. Escape plan: In action

(Huge thanks to my friend endlessmonachopsis for editing.)

As Celia's mind drifted off into sleep she had dreams of her life before the world went to Hell. She recalled waking up each day in a stained, flop-house apartment in Downtown Sahara Square, hating her Life at an almost minimum wage job at Snarlbucks. But compared to now that seemed almost like a vacation.

Her first encounter with the undead was etched into her mind like a wound and played it self over and over in her head. It was a painfully average day at Celia's job at Snarlbucks, the heat of the Sahara Square was starting to creep in as the 11:00 AM hour ticked by and the sun was bearing down in the small café.

The day was slow, only four customers were sitting at distant tables with tablets and smartphones in hand while they sipped their iced coffee, paying the world no mind what-so-ever. Celia, bored to tears on the other hand, she could do nothing but stare at the creame colored ceiling daydreaming about being literally anywhere else.

She was brought back to reality as a customer at the counter had basically come out of the woodwork. "Hello, excuse me?" A customer, a female wolf called out.

"I ordered a coffee about 20 minutes ago, and I was wondering when it would be done." The customer sounded impatient.

"I'll check on your order." Celia spoke As she went into the back to check the customers order She had seen one of her co-workers, a Honey Badger, knelt on the ground. A broken cup of coffee spilled out onto the floor.

"Hey, Are you alright? Are you hurt?" Celia asked gaining no answer from the worker. Celia cautiously walked forward placing her hand on the workers shoulder.

The badger turned his head toward her. His eyes were pure red, his veins glowed a bright blue and white foam had started dripping from his bared teeth. Before Celia could react, the Badger pounced and pinned her to the nearest wall.

Celia let out a horrified scream as the Badger was trying relentlessly to Bite her, attracting the attention of everyone inside the Café.

One of the two fellow co-workers, a male sheep in his late teens tried to pull the badger off of Celia. The savage badger took advantage of this easy prey and bit the sheep right in the face leaving a nasty cut. The co-worker put his hoof over the deep cut, running from his brow, to his lower lip with blood pouring from it.

This bought Celia enough time to push the badger off and find a weapon.

"What the fuck, You freak!" The sheep screamed in pain.

Celia picked up a Knife they used to cut the bread off the counter. "Stay back, don't make me do this." Celia threatened, in an attack position as the savage co-worker stared her down before charging straight towards Celia, having no other choice Celia closed her eyes and felt the knife crash into the badgers head.

Celia went to check on the boy that was bitten, he had a major laceration in his face from the badger teeth his fur stained red. The sheep's eyes had rolled back into his skull and his body went limp and had fallen over.

"Quick, we need an ambulance he's bleeding out!" Celia yelled out.

As another worker went to dial the paramedics the sheep had turned. Unbeknownst to Celia and her fellow coworker.

The fresh zombie walked out into the main area and went for the first mammal in sight, Celia's fellow coworker.

"Watch out!" Celia yelled in vain as the zombie bit Celia's coworker, who let out a horrified scream that, to this day still echoes inside Celia's mind.

* * *

Celia shot straight up in her bed as she woke up from her Nightmare. she could feel her heart beating out of her chest as she wiped loose beads of sweat off her forehead.

Ever since this outbreak started she's had night terrors about the world she was forced to adapt to and the things she's seen since the outbreak. Children devouring their mothers, people dropping dead then getting up as an empty husk of their former selves, just to bite and turn people to the same monsters they were.

"Hey you alright?" Celia heard Judy's voice say in a quiet, concerned tone from the bed across from her. "You sounded like you were having a nightmare."

"I've been having them ever since this all started, about the monsters, the people, never thought something like that could be so scary. "

"I sometimes think back on it too, but never have I lost sleep over it." Judy said trying her best to console, but to very little avail.

"I do all the time, Sometimes I dream about the old times, then I wake up and realize it's all still gone what's the point in carrying on, everyone's dead and we'll all probably join them soon." Celia vented as small tears formed in her eyes.

"Maybe things seem hopeless now, but we can't quit and we are not giving up things will get better." Judy said placing a sympathetic hand on Celia's back.

"I hope you're right, we need more people like you and Nick over there, But unfortunately we're stuck with mammals like Jack." Celia said.

"Well, Not for long When we get out of here we're going to a place I know is full of good people who might be able to rebuild." Judy replied

"That's good I look forward to getting there." Celia said laying her head back down on her pillow. "But until then, its super late, and we need rest."

Judy didn't leave Celia's side, but instead was still laying next to her. Celia soon drifted back into the cold comfort of sleep, thankfully without any nightmares.

The next morning. As the sun was barely rising and the darkness and stars of the night began to fade, Nick, Judy and Celia were plotting their escape.

The plan which Nick now jokingly dubs "Escape plan Alpha", lay flat on a wood table in front of the survivors, just like clockwork Skye walked through the gates of the back area and met up with the survivors.

"Alright, I got you guys out of your jobs for the day we gotta get this done quick." Skye said as she was welcomed by both Nick and Judy.

"Wait, you're trusting Skye to help us?" Celia Questioned.

"Relax, She's known our plan for days, if she wanted to rat us out, she'd have done it by now." Nick said calming Celia's suspicion.

Celia still didn't like the idea of playing Nice with a member of Jacks faction, but knew there was no use arguing. "Alright, I hope you know what you're doing Nick."

"Alright, now first things first, we need the keys to their supply cache, it's held by a honey badger who usually patrols near here." Nick strategized.

"If you want him to come to us, we gotta draw him here." Skye said "What if Judy and Cecelia stage a fight, when he comes in to break up the fight." Skye pointed to Nick "Then Nick swoops in and takes the keys while he's distracted."

"Why can't you just ask for them, You're a guard here too." Celia questioned.

"Cause he's the only one Jack's trusted to handle the food rations, no one else has access." Skye replied.

"Alright, once that's done we gotta figure out how we get out of the camp, for good." Judy said.

"We do have an escape route." Skye pulled out a map of the camp from her pocket unfolded it and placed it onto the table, and pointed to the east end. "There, we have an emergency escape we use in case the camp gets overrun, it's a hatch built into the ground and it continues outward and leads to the outskirts of the Central district."

"If we have to travel through the outskirts just to get to central I wouldn't mind a few more guns to protect ourselves." Nick piped up.

"We can clean out some of the armory I have access to that area." Skye said pulling a silver key from her pocket and placing it on the table. "We can do this after Celia and Judy get us those supplies."

"Sounds like a plan, if anyone's got any questions before we start now would be the time to speak up." Nick said gauging the room every one was ready for action. "Good now let's get down to business." Nick said as he and the survivors got to work on step one.

* * *

After a few hours of coming up with and practicing the fake fight to draw the guards attention, Judy and Cecelia were ready to start.

They saw the Honey Badger guard was patrolling near the main gate, and was close enough to easily hear a disturbance. Celia nodded to Judy, who then nodded to Nick, as a signal to start their fake fight.

"Get out of my Face weak prey!" Celia yelled loudly, making sure attention was drawn.

"You don't scare me predator!" Judy shoved Celia back to make it look more real.

Celia attempted to retaliate with a punch which Judy managed to duck under and then tackle Celia to the ground. Judy drew back, and using only a quarter of her strength, punched Celia in the face, Judy then drew back and another half strength punch landed on Celia's face.

Just then the gates were heard opening and footsteps were heard approaching and everything was going according to plan.

"Woah woah, hey!" They heard a deep male voice call out. It was a honey badger, a shotgun wielded in his hands came rushing in.

He ran in, grabbed Judy by the neck and threw her off of Cecelia. "If there's gonna be fighting done i'll be the one to do it!" He yelled out, standing between the two women.

Nick saw his opportunity and walked up, reached into the pocket of the unsuspecting badger, after rustling around in the guards pocket for a second he managed to grab the keys in his left pocket, but Nicks pickpocket skills were rusty and the badger felt Nicks paw in his pocket. Nick attempted to look innocent as the badgers attention was diverted to him.

"What in the hell so you think you're doing!? " the badger drew back his hand to strike Nick.

Fearing the plan would be compromised Judy ran up, then jumped off the wall and delivered a fierce kick to the back of the badgers head.

*BAM*

The badgers muscles tensed up as he fell straight to the ground unconscious with a loud thud.

Nick was impressed but kept the plan going and grabbed the keys out of the Guards pocket.

"We got what we need, too bad we had to break a skull to get it." Nick said sarcastically.

"Nice kick, kid." Celia said impressed as she picked herself from the ground.

Nick threw the keys to the supply cache to Judy who caught them in mid-air.

"Get those supplies, meet me and Skye here in 30 minutes and try not to get caught." Nick instructed.

Judy and Celia then went on their separate ways as step 1 had passed with flying colors.


	9. Prison break!

Judy and Celia walked through the empty halls of the lower level of the Animalia stadium multiple posters adorned the walls of stars who performed there, from Gazelle, to Jerry Vole, and many others. It was a nice piece of pre-apocalypse history. Judy couldn't help but marvel at them, missing the old world and the music she loved.

"Judy!" Cecelia yelled out breaking Judy's train of thought. "Come on, the supply room is just this way."Celia said pointing down the hall. "We can stare at the cute popstars later."

"Do you think any of these guys could still be alive?" Judy asked as they walked further down the hall that seemed to go on and on.

"Who these music stars, doubt it, they probably haven't left their mansions long enough to have any real survival skills." Celia answered quite bluntly.

As they walked farther down the long, narrow hall, they finally came to a large wood door labeled "Supplies" Written in red paint across the middle, Judy put the key in the lock and opened the door into the room, where they gazed upon shelf after shelf of Food and other provisions.

"Holy shit." Cecelia couldn't believe her eyes. "I knew they were loaded, but not THIS loaded."

"Time to grab what we can and leave,Nick and Skye are waiting." Judy started grabbing small stuff first.

Judy and Cecelia went to work cleaning out the place, they grabbed almost anything they could get their hands on. But one object in particular caught Celia's eye a 9mm handgun sat out in the open, loaded clip and had custom tiger stripe paint, it was almost too perfect to leave behind she even felt slightly bad about who left a gun like that behind.

"Dibs on the cool gun." Celia said as she picked up the gun and shoved it into her pocket.

"Too flashy for me anyway." Judy said going back to grabbing stuff.

"I think we grabbed more than what we can carry." Celia said as her bag of supplies became heavy.

"We got what we need, let's just get back to Nick and Skye." Judy went for the door, only for it to be swung open revealing jack savage.

"One day, one goddamn day out of the chair and the first thing you do is assault my guards and steal my supplies... AGAIN!" They heard a familiar, angry voice bark out. "Should've known better than to trust you!" Jack started walking towards them, fists clenched.

Judy and Celia backed away in fear and started looking for a way out. Judy, unfortunately made the mistake of running, she ran up and punched Jack in the head only for him to turn around and punch Judy right in the back of her head as she passed him, knocking her down.

Celia acted on impulse and pulled out the gun she found earlier, she lined up a shot, but as she pulled the trigger, Jack quickly ran up and kicked the gun off to the side, making a stray bullet strike one of the metallic shelves, giving Celia an idea. Celia punched Jack in his groin, his one true weakness and dodged, as she pushed the shelf onto Jack pinning him to the floor.

"Well, bye." Celia said looking down at Jack who struggled and clawed trying to free himself.

"Come on, get this off of me, and we can settle this fairly!" Jack yelled out grabbing at Celia's legs.

"Nah, I like my odds better this way, besides this is way more funny!" Celia said leaving Jack and locking him in the dark supply room as she heard Jack yelling in frustration.

Satisfied, Celia helped Judy up from the floor and went back to meet with Nick and Skye. They met up with the two foxes and slammed their bags of supplied down on the table in front of them.

"Nice haul this'll keep us going for a while." Nick said impressed.

Nick and Skye sat a bag of weapons down on the table next to the supplies.

"Grab what you like and we can get going." Skye said laying out a cache of weapons, that included a sub-machine gun , a bolt action rifle, a combat knife, and a handgun.

Nick picked up the long rifle, it was just like his last one save for a scope.

Judy reached out and grabbed the SMG, it may have been old with many scratches and marks on it, but it's small size made it perfect for her.

Celia only reached for the knife with serrated edges and green hilt and left the gun on the table.

"Don't you want a gun?" Nick motioned towards the handgun on the table.

"I don't need one, I found this." Celia pulled out the tiger stripe handgun she found earlier provoking an intense reaction from Nick.

"That gun, tell me where you found that!" Nick demanded.

"Calm down, it was in the supply room, it looked cool so I nabbed it." Celia answered.

"There is only one person I know who has a gun like that, it belonged to a medic in my camp." Nick said.

Celia felt guilty now, not the slight feeling she gets that she brushes off, but real guilt. "Oh god, if they got this from a survivor in your camp then your camp was looted and when Jack loots a camp it never ends well." Celia said apologetically.

"I've seen it happen before he once shot a family of three, the mother and father were protecting a sick child when he saw they had supplies he shot them, he was so straight forward, as if it were no big deal like he just killing one of those zombies." Skye chimed in.

"If he did that over some sick survivors imagine what he would do to an entire camp run by his enemies." Judy grimly predicted.

"My people aren't that weak some of them must've survived and drove them off!" Nick defended.

"Well theres only one way to find out, but first we got to escape this place." Skye chimed in.

"You said there was an escape route, where is it?" Judy asked.

"It's in the east wing, I know a route where we can avoid the guards." Skye said Leading the pack as they started their final step of the plan...Freedom.

After skulking through shadows and a few close calls with the guards, they finally found the unguarded and unlocked escape hatch.

Nick quickly grabbed the cold, metal latch and swung it open with out a second thought. A loud piercing alarm filled the camp, startling Nick and his group as he dropped the hatch down with a loud slam as if the alarm wasn't drawing enough attention.

"Quickly guys, follow my lead." Skye said aiming her weapon at the group and pretending to be loyal to Jack.

"What the fuck is this?" A coyote guard yelled out as he saw the group.

"Don't worry, I caught these low-life's trying to escape." Skye said pretending to be a guard

"Save it Skye we already know you're with them, next time, turn your radio before talking about your plans and fucking us over!" Jack yelled out as he and a bunch of soldiers appeared. "I was looking for y'all and you saved me some time." Jack's legs were still bloody and messed up from the metal shelf collapsing on him.

"We've dragged this out long enough, let's just end this!" The badger guard from earlier took aim.

The badger almost shot Celia but luckily his aim was weakened on account of him recently regaining consciousness and the bullet missed, granting Celia enough time to draw her gun and put a bullet right through the badgers head.

As the Badger fell over dead, Jacks faction opened a hail of gunfire on the group.


	10. Death and freedom

Judy, Nick, Celia and Skye cowered behind cover as the gunfire erupted from Jack's faction. bullets flew through the air and the loud booms became deafening.

"Damnit!" Celia screamed when a bullet missed her head by a few inches, making her down to cover.

"Celia!?" Skye jumped to Celia's aid returning fire to the hostiles. "Are you hit?"

"I'm fine, I almost got hit." Celia reassured Skye.

Nick perked his head up from cover and managed to shoot one of the guards in the heart, he crouched back into cover as more gunfire came his way. he saw Judy was sitting there doing nothing. "What are you doing, shoot these guys!" Nick yelled taking another suppressing potshot at the enemies from behind cover.

"I've never shot at a live person, just zombies but they're already dead." Judy shakenly said as she refused to even move from her spot.

"These guys will literally kill you if you don't it's hard to do, but its you or them!" Nick tried reasoning with her, to little effect. "If you cant do that at least fire near them to suppress them." Nick sighed knowing there was no point in trying to force her to kill.

Judy perked up and opened fire with her newly acquired SMG, she managed to hit one deer guard in the shoulder, with Nick finishing him off with a shot to the head.

"Nice shot, just like that!" Nick said as he perked his head up and checked for any more enemies.

There were no more guards at the moment. But their main target, Jack, retreated deeper into the stadium.

"I'm going after Jack, there's more guards coming, take care of them." Nick ordered as he ran after Jack.

Nick chased Jack through the halls, almost tripping over many dead bodies. The chase eventually lead to a room which Jack managed to run into and lock himself in.

Nick smashed into the sturdy door, he summoned all his strength, got a running start and smashed into the door hard as could be, the wood door came crashing down, to reveal Jack inside loading a shotgun.

Nick used his remaining surge of adrenaline to rush Jack and attempt to grapple the shotgun of Jacks hands, using his strength, nick smashed the top part of the heavy gun into Jack's face, the sights breaking the skin on Jack's face, leaving a nasty cut.

Jack ignored the pain and punched Nick in the face loosening his grip. Nick retaliated with an elbow to Jacks face which bloodied his nose, and made jack clutch his face in pain and release the shotgun Nick threw the shotgun off to the side.

Enraged Jack savage knocked Nick to the ground with a kick to the gut.

"Ever since New-topia, you've been nothing but a fucking nuisance." Jack drew back and hit Nick in the face leaving drops of blood on the cold ground. "If I knew that Cecelia was with you i'd have killed you and your camp sooner." Jack struck Nick once more.

Jack drew back for another punch Nick caught Jacks fist and kicked him off, Nick immediately reached for the rifle on his back and in a split second managed to shoot Jacks leg in medium rage, leaving a small mess of blood. Jack collapsed to the floor, clutching his bleeding leg. Nick aimed at Jacks head and heard a click as he pulled the trigger.

"Oh no, looks like you're out!" Jack taunted.

"Joke all you want Savage but you're still dead!" Nick talked back.

"Look at you talking all high and mighty, but everything I did was for my faction, the others were weak and my faction wasnt, we needed stuff to survive, and the others had it." Jack explained. "It's called survival."

"So you steal from innocents and leave them to die while you thrive!?" Nick's speech was interrupted by the door behind him opening, he saw Judy and the others standing there.

"Oh my god, What did you do to him Nick?" Judy asked shocked as she saw the river of blood on the floor.

"I did what was necessary." Nick replied. "It was either me or him, I chose him."

"Well, what do we do with him now?" Skye asked wanting this to be over quickly.

"He's already down why not just leave him?" Judy suggested, wanting no more violence.

"No, he doesn't deserve mercy." Celia said drawing her knife, and drawing back to stab him.

"Stop!" Judy yelled out trying to stop Celia. "It doesn't have to end like this!"

"Do you think he'd show any of us the same mercy!" Celia barked at Judy. "If it were up to him you'd be nothing but zombie bait by now."

"You're not him and you don't need to become him!" Judy yelled back.

"Celia's right." Nick intervened. "Jack's a murderer, we cant just let him live." Nick said talking Judy down.

Relieved, Celia took her knife and placed the sharp end near Jack who didn't even show any fear, in fact he was smiling at his own death.

"This is for the people that have suffered by your hand." Celia yelled as she gripped the knife in her hand.

The sharp tip of the blade founds it's way into Jack's heart, as Celia pulled the blade out of the wound in Jack's chest, Celia was met with looks of approval from Skye and Nick but a disappointed look from Judy.

"I hope that made you feel better." Judy said in a displeased tone.

Celia ignored Judy's remark, she knew what she did what was necessary no matter what Judy said. "Let's just go, I'm sick of this place." Celia said as they made their way back to the escape route.

Skye opened up the hatch leading them into an underground tunnel leading to their long awaited freedom. They jumped in and started walking through the dark tunnel with only a flashlight in one of their supply bags lighting the way.

Soon the tunnel came to a dead end and there was a door on the ceiling of the tunnel, Skye pushed it open and crawled out into the moonlight outskirts of Zootopia's Central District, the tall buildings visible even from where they're standing.

"Come on up, it's safe." Skye called out to the team after seeing no Zombies.

Nick, Judy and Celia crawled out and basked in the freedom, no longer held captive by a psychopath.

"Hey, I just wanna say thanks, no matter what happens, I kinda owe you guys my life, sorry it took me til now to say it." Celia said to both Nick and Judy.

"No problem, without your help, we couldn't have gotten rid of Jack Savage." Nick replied.

"I couldn't have done it without you guys." Celia said gratefully.

"What now?" Skye asked realizing they had not planned this far.

"We have to find a safe place for a few days, get our bearings maybe get some new people." Nick said taking lead, as him and his team walked through the outskirts, towards the city.


	11. Arc I ending

*Well, one Arc in the bag, this took over 4 months to produce the first arc of this story, but I'm not done yet, not even close, I hope to produce a long, enjoyable story with multiple arcs, each with their own challenges and villians to our survivors, I hope you all enjoy reading it as much as I've enjoyed writing it, and remember to follow, Fave and Review if you like this story, without any further ado, I present the ending of the first arc, of my first story.*

Survivors Journal Day No.3

It turns out that Civet we met while scavenging was on the run from a camp leader Jack Savage, the only other rabbit I meet in this city and he turns out to be a psyco.

When he found out Cecelia was with us he wasn't to pleased about it and demanded retribution, unfortunately nick giving Celia wasn't enough. He also wanted the fox who harboured her.

After being held captive at Jacks camp we managed to escape with the help of Cecelia, and a new member to our group Skye who used to work for Jack. We then "Borrowed" Some supplies from his people, not like they'd need it anymore. who ever is left in that camp is pretty screwed

After we escaped we found ourselves on the outskirts of the big city, It was time to get our bearings and find a safe place being out in the open just isn't safe, Nick's camp stationed in Downtown is the best shot we have.

We've been walking through fields and derelict areas for hours, trying to find Nick's camp of New-topia fingers crossed its still there, we could all use some rest in a friendly area.

* * *

Judy closed and placed the journal into her backpack as she and the other survivors pressed on into the silent city.

Judy, was still shaken up over the gunfight and seeing Cecelia stabbing Jack Savage in the chest, it was something that was etched into her mind forever.

"Hey, you're not still mad at me, Right?" Celia turned to ask Judy, noticing her anxious body language as they continued on down the roads.

"I'm not mad at you, just disappointed, did you really have to kill Jack we couldn't have just left him?" Judy responded.

"He would've just came back to attack us if he wasn't put down for good." Celia explained. "It's the same reason we kill Zombies."

"Maybe, but it just doesn't feel like the same thing." Judy replied.

"It never should." Celia gazed upon the knife still stained with Jack's blood. "I thought it's what I wanted, I enjoyed getting my revenge up until the knife slid out of him and his blood ran down my face, it's not an easy thing to do."

As Nick rounded the corner that lead to his camp, what he saw made his heart sink, a crowd of zombies crowded the way leading into New-topia.

A cold hand grabbed nicks shoulder, he looked up to see a New-topia guard, now a zombie leaning in to bite his face. Nick sprung into action, grabbed the zombie by the neck, threw it to the ground and stomped it's head in, which attracted the attention of the other Wandering zombies.

"Looks like he has friends here." Judy said as the zombies sights were set on the survivors.

"I got one." Celia said, holding her knife by the blade and threw it directly into the eye of a cat zombie, She ran and recovered the knife from the cats skull as her and the rest of the team ran toward the crowd of zombies.

Nick knew gunfire would only draw more undead, he improvised and took his rifle by the barrel and cracked the head of another fox zombie open.

Celia ran and sliced the tendon on the back of a zombies leg making it fall to the ground, where Nick finished it off with a hard swing to the head from his rifle.

Skye found herself being cornered by three undead, in a split second decision, she opened fire with her assault rifle she got off one of Jack's guards.

*Bang bang bang* The bullets struck each zombies brains, killing them instantly.

"Dammit Skye, every lurker for miles probably heard those shots!" Nick yelled as he finished another Zombie. "Might as well go loud now."

Before Nick could get to the next zombie a hail of gunfire erupted and all the zombies were filled with holes.

Nick turned to the source, he saw two shadows in front of the open New-topia gates, one canine slightly bigger than Nick and one feline.

"Nick, come on!" One of the silhouettes shouted shooting a surviving zombie. Nick recognized the voice as his second in command.

They all inside the gates of what was once New-topia, Nick and the two other New-topia members shut the gates.

"Nick, I can't believe you're alive!" The canine said happy to see Nick.

Inside the gates Nick got to see the full damage of New-topia, rubble and poorly built shanties are all that remained of the once sprawling camp. "What happened here?" Nick asked

"That rabbit came back, killed almost everyone here only me and a few others survived, he left with almost everything we had."

"Before I forget, I found this there too." Nick took the gun from Celia's pocket and gave it to Eli.

"You found it, thanks!" Eli exclaimed taking the gun.

"You don't have to worry about them anymore, we even brought supplies from their camp." Judy and Celia gave their supplies to Nick.

"You brought back more people?" The canine asked as he noticed Judy, Skye, and Celia, he went to greet them, he stepped into the light to reveal dark brown fur, and yellow and black New-topia apparel. "My name's Eli, I'm the camps medic, if you've been shot in the arm, or your leg is about to fall off, I'm the guy to talk to."

"I'm Judy." Judy introduced herself.

"I'm Skye"

"Cecelia."

"Nice to meet you all, come we just started a fire and while they may look unpleasant, the shanties we built aren't bad at all." Eli motioned the group to follow him.

"That's nice of you to offer but we aren't planning on staying long, just until we get our bearings and have enough for a long travel we were thinking of heading south to the burrows." Nick stopped Eli before he got too talkative.

"The burrows?" Eli questioned. "Why would you want to leave us?"

"Look the city isn't safe any more, the zombies And this camp is already compromised, we thought it would be safer to head towards the countryside." Nick explained. "If its safe there we'll move camp to there."

"Well for now you can stay here I'll show you to where you can rest you look like you need it."

The survivors were shown to an area of Make shift shelters made up of rubble, cardboard boxes, and wood planks, each with their own bedding. After all the walking they did the chance to rest their feet was almost too perfect to pass up.

"Y'know guys, I think its going to be fine here." Nick said taking a spot on a small bedding.

"Agreed, but once we get enough supplies we should finally get out of this city." Judy said going for her own shanty.

"I haven't forgotten our plan." Nick reassured Judy. "We'll just take it one day at a time."

*End of Arc I*


	12. Arc II, The long road ahead

Zootopia Apocalypse: Arc II.

* * *

Two weeks later and the camp of New-topia has become a small but thriving community.

Vegetable and fruit Seeds from the bags of supplies produced their food supply which kept the group fed with Judy doing the farming, she was also in charge of food and rationing.

Skye worked with weapons, ammo and minor mechanical work.

Eli guarded the front gate from attackers and medical services if they were needed.

Nick and Cecelia on the other hand worked as scouts for the camp, they gathered food, survivors and cleared out zombies in certain areas of the city.

Nick and Cecelia were scouting in the midday far from camp, the summer sun brought out the stench of the zombies and the wind carried it throughout the city.

They searched high and low looking for anything useful In abandoned store shelves, in old abandoned cars, and even in trash cans.

"Do we really have to scavenge, this city is tapped there isn't much left." Celia complained looking down upon a tiny pile of supplies they gathered in a small black bag.

"I don't like this either but Judy said some of our crops aren't growing well and food is becoming scarce, we have to do this." Nick reassured Cecelia.

There was an old car dealership nearby, the lot was empty except for one lone red car, with intact windows, tires, and only looked slightly damaged.

"Looks like something might come out of our scavenging after all." Celia stated as she and nick went to inspect it.

"Looks like there's something in there. " Nick noticed the silhouette of a mammal through the window.

Celia opened the door to the medium sized car and saw the corpse of a coyote slumped over in the front seat.

"This still looks useable." Nick said as he opened the hood and inspected the engine.

"Clean out the corpse and the blood, we'll have Skye look at it back at camp." Celia grabbed the coyote and attempted to pull him from the seat, only for the coyote to spring to life and grab Celia.

Celia let out a loud scream as the Zombie managed to bite Cecelia's paw his teeth pierced her pinky and ring fingers. "Don't just stand there, HELP!" Celia screamed to Nick.

Nick slammed the hood, pulled out his Knife, drew back his good arm and swung down with all of his might severing the brittle arm and knocking Cecelia down from the momentum shift. Nick then impaled the Coyote's skull and dragged it out of the car.

Celia peeled the infected hand off of her arm, the zombies nails had left small puncture wounds on her arm, but scratches were thankfully not enough to turn someone to a Zombie. The bite however was a different matter of Concern.

"It bit me, It fucking bit me!" Celia shakingky whimpered as adrenaline coursed through her. Just as she got up, Zombies who were attracted to her yelling, started coming out of every nook and cranny of the city block.

Nick and Celia quickly dove into the dirty red muscle car and slammed the doors as Zombies who rushed to their new prey "Can you hotwire this thing?" Celia asked as the zombies started pounding on the glass.

Nick had hotwired many cars before, but not under pressure of being eaten alive by corpses. He managed to open up the panel on the steering column, the car was an older model, not equipped with theft prevention like newer cars, making The process easier. After a few minutes of crossing and connecting wires, the engine came alive.

Nick smashed the gas pedal down as hard as he could and sped down the streets running over the zombies unfortunate enough to be in front of them.

"Don't worry with this car we'll be back at camp in no time." Nick said as he pushed the car to its limits.

Celia clutched her bitten, bleeding fingers in pain she didn't know how long she had before she would succumb to the infection. "Please tell me there's something we can do about this." Celia panicked, showing Nick her bite wound.

Nick's looked at the puncture wounds still bleeding and Celia's gains starting tonglow a faint blue."Maybe, I don't know, I've never really had to treat bites before." Came Nick's blunt answer.

Cecelia could feel her blood run cold as the infection started to slowly crawl through her blood stream.

Back at camp Eli was watching the front gates with a rifle across his lap looking out towards the street. He saw a red car quickly approaching he picked up the rifle and took ah, expecting trouble from its occupants.

The car stopped dead in it's tracks in front of the gate.

"Open the gates, she's been bitten!" Nick steppes out and yelled to Eli.

Eli lowered his gun as soon as he realized it was Nick. He ran down and opened the gates for the two survivors. Nick sped into camp and parked the car off to the side.

"What happened!" Eli exclaimed taking Celia to the medical shack in the camp.

"One of the zombies caught her by surprise, I killed it but not before it bi her." Nick explained.

"Is there anything we can do!?" Celia asked Eli.

Eli knew there was only one solution to this problem. He put on a pair of Latex gloves. "Nick, hold her still!" Eli demanded as Judy, and Skye also rushed to see what was going on.

Eli pulled out an old but sterile Knife and walked towards Celia who's hand was being held down by Nick.

"W-what are you doing?" Celia shouted as Eli came closer.

"I'm sorry, but there's no time for anesthesia, Grit your teeth, this ain't gonna be pretty!" Eli warned as he tied a tourniquet around Celia's upper forearm to minimize blood loss, he took the knife, and held the sharp end towards Celia's bitten fingers.

"Wait, no!" Celia yelled in vain.

Eli thrusted the knife down, tearing through the muscles, of Celia's Fingers. Which only made Celia scream and squirm more.

"Gimme a hand here!" Nick yelled out as he had trouble holding Celia still.

Judy and Skye immediately Jumped in and held Celia's hand down hard as possible.

"This would be easier if you'd just hold still!" Skye yelled to Celia.

"Its almost over, just hang in there!" Eli said as made another hard cut and another until he Finally severed the two infected fingers.

Celia took one look at the stumps on her hand and fainted from shock, hitting the ground with a thud.

"What happened!?" Judy asked Eli wiping blood from her hands.

"Its alright, she just passed out from shock." Eli picked Celia from the ground and took her to stop the bleeding and treat her injuries.

But whether the infection spread too far or if Celia was saved just in time was still a mystery.

*Note, I understand that anatomically Animals don't technically have "Pinky" or "Ring fingers". However that is what I called them due to lack of better terms. also I know in Zootopia most animals have only 4 fingers though I went for a little more realistic portrayal of animal anatomy and gave them 5 fingers, cause that is what most animals 'Especially felines' have, Enjoy Arc II."


	13. Survival lesson

Authors Note: Yea, it's been over a month, sorry for such a long delay, but writers block and other hobbies and pastimes have kept me busy, but enough talk, you don't care about my personal life, onto the 13th chapter, Enjoy!

Nick sat on a bench near the center of New-topia, Cecelia's blood was still stained on his sleeve, but at this point being covered in blood was such a common occurrence in the apocalypse it may as well have been a mark of status.

As he was sitting there deep in thought, Nick was approached by Eli who threw off a pair of bloodied latex gloves to the floor. "I stopped the bleeding and bandaged her hand best I could." Eli said as he stood near Nick. "That zombie did do her one favor, if the zombie had bitten her lower and gotten her wrist the infection would have killed her for sure."

"Thanks for the update, how long until she regains consciousness?" Nick asked with concern.

"She passed out from shock and lost quite a bit of blood, when she regains consciousness can't be so accurately timed." Eli answered honestly. "I don't wanna lie, there still might be a chance we were too late, we may have only bought her a peaceful moment." Eli had done many amputations in the past on survivors, only some of them actually survived and recovered.

"Well, If it comes to that, you know what to do." Nick told Eli, with the serious tone and face Eli expected from Nick, showing he wasn't joking.

"I got to go get cleaned up, you may want to check on your friend Judy, she look pretty shook up after what happened with Celia." Eli suggested to Nick, as he walked back to the medic station.

Nick decided to take Eli's suggestion, not like he had anything else to do.

Nick stood up and walked through camp to the greenhouse, Judy's usual hangout spot, and where she grew the food, he opened the green tinted door, walked in and saw numerous crops of all kind, from lettuce, to carrots, and Nick's favorite, Blueberries.

Judy was knelt down in front of a patch of carrots, facing away from Nick, as he approached her, he saw that she was holding a photo of her and what looked like two other, older bunnies in a rural area, one in blue overalls and brown hat, and one in a violet shirt and blue jeans, they looked old enough to be her parents.

As Nick got closer, Judy's ears perked up at the sound of Nick's footsteps and turned to see him standing there awkwardly. "Did you need something?" Judy asked as she wiped a stray tear from her eye.

"Are those your parents?" Nick asked hoping he wasn't prying too much.

"Yes, this was taken when I left for Zootopia to become a cop." Judy said as her eyes darted back to the photo in the palm of her paws. "This is all I have left of them, when this world gets me down, I see this picture and it reminds me of better times, and the hope that they're still out there." Judy explained.

"Maybe, they're looking for you too." Nick said in the most consoling voice a hardened survivor can conjure up. "I think they would be proud you're still alive and staying strong."

"I hope so too, I think my parents would be grateful that I found someone like you," Judy said as Nicks words perked her up.

"Do you have any family left out there?" Judy asked out of curiosity.

"Unfortunately, no." Nick plainly said. "I was an only child, My dad was never around, and god only knows how long I haven't spoken to my mother." Nick opened up slightly which Judy counted as a small achievement.

Judy felt sympathetic towards Nick, at least she had her parents to lose, but Nick had spent years it seemed, even before the apocalypse with barely any other family or friends, She didn't know how he could live for years with that and even through the apocalypse and still seem so collected and laid back, he was really a true survivor.

Judy's problems seemed to shrink in comparison.

"I'm sorry to hear that." was all Judy could say.

"Don't worry about it, in these times, I've learned not to let it get to me, I shouldn't let something as small as my feelings get in the way of our survival." Nick said trying hard to mask any strong emotion. "So, how's the farming going?" He asked trying to change the subject before he got too deep.

"Don't be so afraid to show emotion, Nick." Judy said not falling for the subject change.

Nick sighed, no getting out of this one, he knew he shouldn't have opened up, now it's going to be hard to stop. "You don't get it, this is my settlement, a beacon of hope left in Zootopia." Nick said in a serious tone. "I have to lead these people, they're my responsibility, if I make one mistake we all get killed, that means I can't breakdown over every loss."

Judy backed down as she didn't have any room to argue. "You're right, I'm sorry." She said.

It felt good for Nick to finally vent some frustration, but he also realized he may have over done it, Nick turned back to Judy. "I'm sorry too, sometimes this position is stressful, guess I needed to vent a little." Nick said apologetically.

"Well, I'll always be here if you need to, it's the least I can do to the fox who saved my life." Judy rested a hand on Nick's shoulder and gave him a reassuring smile.

Before Nick could get his next sentence out to show his appreciation, the door to the greenhouse opened once more and Skye walked in, dressed in clothes stained with grease. "Hey, I'm not interrupting anything am I?" She asked.

"Depends, is something wrong?" Nick asked as Skye shut the door behind her.

"Slightly, I checked out the car you guys brought back, everything is in working order, except one thing, it needs gas and we barely have any in the camp to spare." Skye said dropping a large red gas canister and syphoning tool by their feet. "Bring some more back and we can roll out as soon as we're ready."

Nick turned to Judy. "You up for a mission?" He asked. "I wouldn't mind having a teammate watch my back."

Judy needed a break from the boring farming job and figured getting out, slaying undead, and making the world a better place was a nice change of pace. "Sure, let's roll." Judy accepted.

Judy and Nick grabbed all necessary equipment, Judy grabbed her Smg and a combat Knife, Nick stuck with just a sniper rifle, and grabbed a first aid kit. once done getting prepped, They grabbed the gas can and syphoning tool and opened the gates, and back out into the wastes, into the dead streets.

Nick had other reasons for dragging Judy on this mission however, he noticed she gets taken down easily when she has to fight Zombies, if she wanted to be a permanent member of the team, she had to learn how to fight like one. He wanted to use this as a survival lesson for Judy as well as a mission.

Nick spotted a Wolf zombie shambling near a car, it was perfect. "Hey Judy, take that one down." He ordered pointing to the zombie.

Judy followed nicks orders and ran up to the lone zombie.

As the wolf zombie set his sights on Judy, she panicked and blindly stabbed the wolf in the gut with her knife to save ammo, the wolf showed very little signs of pain as he set his red eyed glare to Judy, he grabbed Judy by the ears and threw her to the ground where he could easily finish her off.

Nick quickly drew his rifle and put a bullet in the wolfs head before any real damage was done. He then walked up and yanked the knife out of the wolfs gut, and handed it back to Judy. "This is why I brought you with." He said helping Judy up to her feet.

Judy was confused at what Nick said. "Why?" Judy asked wiping dirt and blood off her clothes.

"You don't stab a zombie in the stomach, the only thing alive in these things is their brain, that's what you gotta aim for." He said turning his head to a nearby Jaguar zombie attracted from the gunshot Nick fired. "And if they're bigger than you, bring em down to your size." He said as he walked over and kicked the knee of the larger Jaguar zombie before stomping it's head in when it hit the ground.

"I see." Judy said taking a mental note.

"You've been running away from these things for too long, but you need to know how to fight them as well." Nick said as he put the syphon pump given into the gas tank of a nearby car, and started syphoning gas from it.

As Judy stood guard she saw another zombie shambling closer, it was a fox zombie, with half a face missing, time for Nicks teachings to pay off.

Judy now knowing how to fight the infected, kicked the fox zombie in the knee, shattering the bone and forcing him down to her size . "Knife to meet you!" Judy yelled the cheesy one liner as her blade met the Fox zombies skull.

Nick rolled his eyes at Judy, but at least she was learning. "Nice job, maybe less one-liners will do you some good!" Nick yelled out to Judy.

As the last bit of gas flowed into the canister, Nick removed the syphon pump from the car and gas can, it was only slightly filled, this was gonna take all day at this rate, Until Nick saw a godsend, it was an old ambulance, it was old but looked salvageable, those tend to carry large amounts of gas in their tank.

Nick ran over and started syphoning praying for a miracle, before long, a stream of gas started pouring from the ambulance through the plastic tubes and started filling up the gas can, up to the mid way mark on the can, and even beyond that. As the last bit flowed out, Nick took the gas can, that was at least 80 percent full and syphon tool.

Nick figured this should be enough for at least a days worth of travel before needing another filling, not like they had any more gas cans at the moment anyway, plus it was getting late, and the city gets more dangerous at later hours.

"This should be okay for now, let's move out." Nick called to Judy as they started on their way back to New-topia.

"Thanks for your help." Judy thanked Nick as they walked the streets. "I don't know where I'd be without you."

"Don't mention it, it's the least I can do for my teammate." Nick looked down to Judy with the same smile she gave him earlier. "And my friend." He said sincerely as they walked farther down into the sunset.


	14. On the road, again

Cecelia woke up In an old hospital bed, her memory was still faded and her head felt light as air, she blinked a few times to clear her foggy vision, she attempted to sit up, but light headedness had forced her back down to the soft matress, she was however able to lift her arm to see her left hand wrapped in bandages, with two fingers missing, a sight that made her sick to her stomach.

The room she was in was musty, chipped paint on the walls and ceiling, with a small fan providing very little cool air.

Celia then heard the door to the room she was in swing open.

Eli had walked in to check on her with a handful of medical supplies just in case, but a look of surprise ran across his face when he saw Celia had regained consciousness. "You're awake?" He questioned inching closer as he was slightly unsure if it was really her.

"I'm not a zombie, close enough I guess." Cecelia plainly said. "What happened?"

"You were bitten and we had to amputate two fingers, I wasn't sure you'd wake up anytime soon," Eli said taking a seat next to Cecelia.

"You think that keeps me down for long?" She jokingly said "I live to tempt fate,"

"I see the infection didn't have time to reach your brain, you really are lucky to be alive," Eli responded as he grabbed Celia by the wrists and pulled her up into a sitting position. "No use keeping you down." He said.

Celia grabbed her head in pain as blood rushed from it, after she stopped seeing spots, she noticed she was in nothing but her underwear. "What the hell?" She asked still dazed. "Did you undress me?"

"I had to see if there were any other wounds that needed tending." Eli said slightly embarrassed. "But I do have something you could wear." He said reaching into a nearby drawer and pulling out a black outfit for a medium size mammal.

"It's zombie armor, it's thick enough to withstand the bites from most mammals, predators and prey alike." Eli said as Cecelia slipped into the outfit, it was heavy, yet comfortable.

"Hopefully it won't come to that." Cecelia said as she dropped to her feet and was able to slowly, but surely walk around.

"Judy and Nick went to scavenge gas for the car you guys found, i'm sure they'll be glad you're awake." Eli said as he lead Celia out to the camp.

Out into the camp Judy and Nick had finally returned from their scavenge mission and were discussing future plans with Skye.

"Celia, you're awake?" Nick said surprised that she recovered quicker than expected.

Eli nodded quickly to Nick before going to check on other patients he had waiting.

"Look, if we're serious about leaving soon, we might have to consider our plan a little more." Skye said as she inserted the full can of gas Nick and Judy brought back into the cars gas tank.

"What do you mean?" Judy asked.

"I just want to know what im risking my life for, that's all, we're safe here and you're asking us to travel way down south into the burrows" Skye argued.

"This city is falling apart, we already got attacked by one survivor, and god only knows how many more are out there, not taking into account the zombies, out in the country is better since we have the advantage of the land and less zombies." Judy stated.

"But do you think we can actually make it there in one piece?" Skye asked. "How do we even know the country burrows are safe?"

"I'd rather die trying to get to my family, than stay and die in this god forsaken city, even if we have a slight chance, it's worth it." Judy confidently stated.

Skye rolled her eyes as there was no use arguing. "Fine, pack up your things, we leave in ten minutes." the survivor team dispersed and went to work packing up anything useful.

Judy walked over to the old greenhouse and went to work packing up food and water for the long trip, on her way out, she also made sure to grab her family picture and Smg.

As Nick was taking books to read for the drive, Eli walked up and gave Nick a bag full of medicine and a medical book. "Here, you might need this." Eli said handing Nick the bag.

"You're not coming with us?" Nick asked.

"This place is going to need a leader, i'm pretty much the next best thing there is here," Eli said. "Remember, if things go to shit out there, you can always come back here."

"Maybe if there is a safe haven in the burrows, we could move the rest of the camp there, i'm sure they'd appreciate a few helping paws." Nick suggested throwing the medicine bag over his shoulder.

"Wouldn't be easy, but If there's a safer place out there, we could easily do that," Eli answered.

Nick gave one last handshake to Eli. "Stay safe friend, trouble is never too far behind." Nick said taking his bag over to the car, where Skye was loading weapons and ammo into the trunk of the car.

Skye looked over to Nick as she saw him out of the corner of her eyes. "I'm still not a hundred percent on board with this whole idea." Skye said leaning against the car.

"Judy said her family is down there, I agree this plan might be crazy, but if it were my family and a safe place to boot, i'd fight like hell, I'm sure you would too." Nick replied.

"Look, you helped take down Jack, and accepted me into your group when you had zero reason to trust me, I respect your judgment, if you also thing going south is a good idea, I've no room to argue." Skye said accepting Nick's leadership.

"You think we have enough fuel to make it all the way there?" Nick asked.

"I don't think so, chances are when this fuel runs out, we'll have to go on foot." Skye answered honestly.

Judy and Celia joined Nick and Skye, they put their supplies in the roomy trunk of the bright red sports car, as Nick opened the drivers side door, and took the wheel.

Nick turned the key in the ignition as Judy took a seat next to him, Skye and Cecelia took the back seats, the engine revved and purred as Nick put the car into drive and prepared to drive out of the gates as the gate guard entered the gates code to open.

The rickety, sheet metal and wooden gates of New-topia creaked open, Nick took his foot off the cars brakes and sped out of the small settlement, on the first steps of the groups long journey.

Skye and Celia were sat in the back seats, clearly meant for slightly taller mammals, the fact that Skye used to be part of Jack's team made Celia slightly weary of Skye, she just sat in silence staring out of the window into the ash and smoke city whizzing by as the car accelerated faster.

Judy, not content to sitting in the silence, turned over to Nick. "What was it like in Zootopia before the apocalypse struck?" Judy asked out of curiosity.

"It was just the same as anywhere else, predator and prey didn't live together in total peace, most of the time they were at each others throats." Nick answered recalling the old world.

Nick turned to Judy "How were the burrows like?" He asked back out of curiosity.

"It was nice, was mostly a bunny settlement, so everyone was friendly, what little predators did live there were also pretty friendly, except Gideon." Judy said, her tone turning venomous at the mention of Gideon.

"Gideon?" Nick asked.

"He was a fox too, but he used to bully me and my friends when we were kids, hopefully he's a better mammal now." Judy said feeling the old claw scars on her cheek.

"He was a kid, we're all jerks as kids." Nick said. "I used to know quite a few kids who were jerks." Nick said remembering a few mean kids from his past.

As Time passed and the sun started to set, the groups car sped down the roads leading them deeper into the large downtown Zootopia district, into unknown territories.

As Nick drove down a long straightway road in a small part of town, he noticed something blocking the roads ahead, the scarceness of light made it hard to make out at a distance, it looked like a large black mass, stretching between two small buildings.

As Nick got closer and closer the cars headlights lit up the blockage, revealing it to be a large pile of dead zombies.

Nick slammed the cars brakes to avoid colliding head first into it. As Nick and the team went out to investigate, they got a better look at the pile of corpses, most of them were predators, lions, tigers, bears, among many other predator and prey zombies.

"Oh my." Celia said shocked at the sight.

"Look for a way around." Nick ordered his team.

The group dispersed looking for a way to pass the roadblock in front of them. Celia and Skye looked for other roads to take, while Judy investigated the road block itself, she noticed a small, gap on the bottom left corner of it, between the corpses and the building it was up against, it looked big enough for Judy to fit through at a time, but not a car, or the other survivors.

As Judy turned to report her finding to the others, she felt a cold hand grab her wrist, she quickly jolted back out of shock, and unsheathed her Smg as she saw a small black shadow with faintly glowing eyes lunge at her.

Judy acted quickly and swiped her knife at the lunging zombie, severing it's lower jaw and forcing him to the ground, Judy then stabbed the zombie in the brain in ending it's life.

"You alright?" Nick asked checking around for anymore infected.

"I'm fine." Judy said catching her breath.

Nick's eyes widened as he spotted a medium sized horde of zombies approaching them from all directions, Nick and the others opened fire. making sure to hit the larger predator targets before any others.

As Skye was reloading a clip, a stray zombie attracted to the gunshots grabbed her from behind, making Skye scream in suprise.

Before the zombies mouth could make contact, Celia stepped in and bashed the zombies skull with a pistol whip and pushed it off of Skye. "Be more careful." Celia said as Skye thanked her.

As the zombie horde grew more and more, Judy found herself unable to keep up with killing the numerous amounts of zombies closing in on her, as a group surrounded her, Nick and the others were too busy with their own zombies to kill to assist her.

As she fired her last bullet , Judy's instincts kicked in out of fear, she blindly scurried away on all fours, behind the corpse wall which by now had no more zombies hiding behind it.

Meanwhile, Nick and the others had finally finished off the last of the zombies. "Is everyone alright, Skye, Celia?" he called to his teammates.

"Here." Skye said with a heavy breath, recovering from the battle.

"Present." Celia replied checking on Skye.

"How about you Judy?" He asked looking around, gaining no answer. "Judy, JUDY!" He called out not seeing Judy in sight.


	15. Left for dead

As Judy ran from the battle out of fear, her adrenaline rush eventually wore off and she found herself in the middle of a dark street, far from the group, in the southern downtown district, with infected possibly lingering.

She tried to get her bearings and catch what little breath she had, as she did, she could hear the infected around every corner, none of them were making their way towards her, but Judy stepped lightly and stayed quiet just to be safe.

Judy could hear some nearby infected around a corner, she peered around the corner to see two infected aimlessly shambling around in the street, one raccoon and one wolf, Judy observed the behavior of the infected to see if she can find an advantage to use against them.

She noticed the zombies growling, and how every time one zombie growled, the other turned towards it out of curiosity, before realizing it was just another infected and continued searching for new prey, or anytime even the slightest noise rang out they went looking for the source.

"The noise, maybe they're attracted to noise." Judy thought to herself picking up a nearby rock to test the theory, she drew back and threw the rock through the window of a nearby building.

The infected perked their heads up and scrambled to the source of the loud smash, Judy used this time to try to sneak past the Infected, she stuck to the shadows and tried to crouch as low as possible, she made sure to step lightly and softly to avoid detection.

After looking for a short time, the infected lost interest in the noise they heard and turned back around, as they turned their heads, they saw Judy trying her best to stay quiet and undetected, unfortunately she wasn't very good at either, the infected set their sights and started off for their unsuspecting prey.

Judy could hear the patter of feet quickly coming towards her, she drew her knife and remembered what nick taught her, she stabbed a raccoon zombie in the head killing it instantly, the second zombie wolf caught Judy while she pulled the knife out of the raccoons skull, the wolf lunged at Judy who managed to dodge last second. She kicked the wolf in the knee and brought him to her size and put down the wolf as well.

"Thank you Nick!" Judy silently said to herself.

She was about to press forward when she noticed, those weren't the only zombies around, she could now see a whole horde just across the corner, they could sense live pretty nearby and started closing in.

Without time to think Judy started to sprint ahead, knowing she can't outrun the infected, so she'll have to outsmart them, as the zombies got closer, she ran the opposite direction, down the street, and into the window she broke, into a small store, as climbed over the window, her paw struck a piece of glass, leaving a cut on her paw that oozed blood, the infected went into a frenzy at the smell of fresh blood.

Judy ran through the building clutching her bleeding paw, ran out of the door back into the streets on the other side, before making a beeline to the only safe looking building she could see, an old ice cream parlor, she pushed open the giant, heavy glass doors, obviously meant for giant mammals like elephants or hippos.

She pushed it open as much as she could managing to open the door enough for her to run inside and slam the door in the face of the zombies behind her, as the zombie's leaned in on the glass, with thankfully not enough force to push open the door, Judy grabbed a nearby chair meant for elephant kits and pushed it against the door just in case a large zombie did happen to pass by and actually push the door open.

Judy inspected the cut on her hand, it was too dark to see clearly, but the quick sound of her blood dripping on the tile floor was indication enough, she had to bandage it with something.

she took hold of one of her long sleeves on her shirt and tore it off, she took the thin strip of cloth and wrapped it around her hand as a make shift bandage, not very effective but it would have to do.

The inside of the shop was still and quiet, the once bright and cheerful wallpaper reduced to a torn, washed out mess. There was a counter where they served food, she wasn't starving, but she could eat something.

Judy jumped onto the large counter and looked for anything edible, there were huge tubs of now melted ice cream possibly way past expiration date, and a fridge full of rotted cherries. she wasn't desperate enough to eat either one of those, there was a small tray of peanuts used for ice cream toppings, a much more suitable option considering their long shelf life.

She grabbed one and popped it into her mouth to see if they were still good, or if they were handled by any infected. The taste was still great and as far as she could tell, she wasn't infected by them, so she continued to eat one after another. after another.

"I hope you plan on sharing that." A soft female voice said, almost making Judy choke out of shock.

Judy turned to see a figure as tall as her on the ground below, She jumped down to get a better look, it was a sheep with white fur, with a blue overcoat and white undershirt with a munitions belt full of red shells, a skirt, and a pair of red glasses, Judy knew this person before the outbreak.

"Assistant mayor Bellwether?" Judy asked recognizing the survivor.

"It's just Dawn Bellwether now, that title died along with everyone else." She said. "I see you're still alive Officer Hopps."

"Why are you here, isn't it more safe at city hall?" Judy asked.

"I have a group near here that needed this place cleared out for a base expansion, I'm just waiting out the night here." Dawn explained "What about you. what are you doing here besides going through what little rations I had left?"

"I have a group but we got separated." Judy said to ashamed to admit she ran away from the group out of fear.

"Well maybe you could come with me to my people, we can send out an emergency broadcast and reunite you with your friends." Dawn offered, "and maybe a doctor for your injury."

"Sure, it's better than aimlessly wandering around for them I guess." Judy accepted the offer.

"That's great to hear, we'll leave first thing in the morning." Bellwether said as she and Judy went into the back room of the cafe, to rest up for the following day.

* * *

Back with Nick, Skye and Celia.

"Where the hell is Judy?" Nick asked his team who we're still recovering from the battle.

"I didn't even see her through all the Carnage, she must've ran off." Skye answered.

"We can't leave her out there, we have to get her." Nick said concerned for Judy's safety.

"We'll have to find a way past this massive pile of corpses first, and I don't think any of us have the time or energy for moving corpses." Skye said suggesting an alternate path.

Celia noticed an old building that had half of it's space beyond the zombie pile. "What about that building right there, maybe we can use that to get past here."

"Good idea, but how will that help?" Nick asked?

"Easy, part of the building is on the other side, we just have to get inside and get out through the windows."

"Ok, maybe that can work." Nick admitted as he went on with the idea.

Celia went to retrieve some of the supplies left in their car, no use leaving it to get stolen by thieves.

Nick opened the door to the building, gun drawn in case of danger, he stepped inside the dark derelict building, using his night vision to navigate.

"I don't see any windows to go through here." Nick said.

"Maybe not here, but maybe on the next floor." Celia said checking the stairs for danger, before walking up.

As they treaded cautiously through the stairwell, they finally reached the second floor.

"If I remember correctly, we need to go through the left side." Celia said going up to a door labeled 102. "This'll do" she said kicking down the door.

There was nothing in the room except for furniture, and no infected.

Celia opened the nearest window to see if it was safe, below was an alley way, with a dumpster full of bags and to her relief, was on the other side of the pile of corpses.

"What now?" Nick asked.

"We jump." Celia said standing on the window sill.

"Are you mad, we'll break our legs!" Nick retorted.

"Just watch me." Celia said jumping out of the open window, shocking both Nick and Skye.

Celia free fell for a few seconds before landing on the dumpster in the alley way, the bags of garbage breaking her fall.

"Holy shit, you alright!?" Skye yelled to Celia.

"Just fine, it just hurts for a second!" Celia yelled climbing out of the dumpster inviting the other survivors to come down.

Skye looked down, she was scared of heights, it may not be a huge fall, but it looked like a hundred miles, and she could feel her blood go cold at the thought of jumping, she climbed the window sill and tried to build up the courage.

"Nick, don't you da-" Skye's sentence turned to screams of horror as she felt a paw push her out of the window and plummeting face first into the dumpster below.

Skye took a moment to silently curse Nick under the little breath that wasn't knock out of her.

Nick waited for Skye climb out and make room for him, as she stood up and got on the ground below, nick bravely jumped and landed perfectly on his back and climbed out of the dumpster.

Skye drew her paw back and clawed Nick's snout "Asshole!" She scolded Nick.

"Sorry, but we had to move quickly." Nick said rubbing his snout in pain.

Nick took point and led his team through the streets, looking for any sign of Judy's whereabouts.

"How are we supposed to find her, there isn't exactly a missing survivor hotline." Celia said.

"She couldn't have gone too far, we can find her and get back to the car before sunrise." Nick responded.

"Wait, is that her over there?" Skye said turning her attention to a bunny shaped silhouette standing in the streets.

Nick advised his team to stay low as he went to investigate, using his night vision, he walked up to the rabbit.

"Judy is that you?" Nick asked inching closer, as he could hear soft growling, he was starting to have a bad feeling about this.

The rabbit turned it's head revealing white and black striped fur, dressed in a black tuxedo, with a stab wound in it's chest, Jack Savage, now one of the walking dead!

As soon as Nick figured out who it was, Savage suddenly leapt into the air and latched on to Nick's face, Nick's only free hand around Jack's neck the was the only thing keeping his teeth from Nick's brain.

Skye rushed in and bashed Jack in the face loosening his grip on Nick, before taking the rabbit zombie and throwing him off nick, Savage landed on the hood of a car, breaking the windshield and Jack's skull, and activating the cars loud alarm system.

"Oh this is gonna get bad." Nick said as he could hear zombies racing towards them.

As the car alarm loudly rang out, a large group of zombies sprinted towards the group from multiple directions, one of them, a large rhino zombie that had more rage than any other zombie, roaring loudly, throwing aside any zombie that stood between him and the survivors.

"So, run or shoot?" Celia asked as the rhino was closing in on them.

"Both!" Nick yelled as the group started running in a random direction down the street, firing blindly at the horde right behind them.

"Get to the rooftop!" Skye yelled pointing towards a fire escape leading up the side of a building.

Celia and nick turned to pick off zombies with their guns as Skye climbed the fire escape first to check if it's clear.

As Nick set his sight on a lion zombie, a bullet pierced it's skull before he could shoot.

"Come up I'll hold them off!" Skye yelled taking out zombies with her assault rifle as Nick, Celia and zombies all flooded the fire escape.

Nick made it up to the rooftop, while Celia was slower to reach the top.

The rhino zombie jumped up and attempted to grab Cecelia, bending and breaking the platform she was standing on, putting her more in reach of the gigantic infected rhino, as it climbed up grabbing for Celia, the fire escape gave away to the infected rhino's enormous weigh.

Celia leapt for her life as the fragments of the fire escape went crashing into the ground below, she was caught by Nick as he pulled her up to safety.

Celia collapsed on her knees and sighed in relief. She gave Nick a sincere glance.

"We survived, I can't believe it!" Skye said grateful to survive another encounter.

"Skye, all we did was cross a street." Nick said halting Skye's celebration. "I'll feel safer when we finally leave this damned city."

The team decided to wait out the horde before continuing any further. Not like they were anxious to leave their only safe spot for now.


	16. New friends, Or foes?

Deep into the night as the moon was at it's highest point nick could only hear the groans and moans of the undead horde down below creating an eerie echo. While everyone else was able to sleep through it, Nick could not.

Nicks mind wandered as he stared into the abyss of the night sky he tried to take his mind off the zombies down below but his mind could only think of one other thing. Judy.

Nick felt guilty he couldn't help Judy during the zombie attack and keep her from running off into the direction of a horde. "If she gets killed it's all my fault, I'd have failed her." Nick's mind taunted him. Nick closed his eyes as tight as could be and tried to get comfortable enough to rest.

Hours later the morning dawned and the group was getting their gear ready to move forward. Celia and Skye had kept a close eye on the horde below that has now been thinned out a bit making travel safer.

Nick hadn't gotten much rest but he had pulled many all nighters even before the apocalypse so he could handle the one night of restlessness.

Celia grabbed the bag of supplies she grabbed from the night before.

"What's our plan, nick?" Skye asked as she finished readying up.

"We keep moving, Judy couldn't have gone far with a horde in her way." Nick finally found the strength to stand and lead his group once again.

The group took the stairwell from the roof down 15 flights of steps to the bottom floor and back out into the streets. there was quite a few zombies roaming around blocking their southern route.

"We have to clear these zombies out, make your shots count!." Nick ordered his team who started to open fire on the zombies in their way, while simultaneously progressing south.

Nick managed to take a shot with his rifle that went through the skull of a zombie, and went through the skulls of three other zombies behind him.

An otter zombie latched itself onto Skye taking her by surprise. Before the otter tore into Skye's jugular vein, she grabbed the infected by the ankle and swung him as hard as possible into a nearby rabbit zombie Killing both instantly.

Celia was cornered by only two infected, she put a bullet between the eyes of the first zombie, as she went for the next one her pistol clicked as she pulled the trigger. As she tried to reach for her knife the other infected rushed her and pinned her to the wall. The zombie bit down on Celia's shoulder but thankfully the zombie armor she was given at new-topia prevented the teeth from piercing her flesh. Celia pierced the zombies temple with her knife and pushed his corpse away.

"Looks like that's all of them." Nick said surveying the street making sure no undead slipped through the cracks. "Time to move!" Nick urged his team to follow him.

However, in the shadows a weasel who had heard the gunshots and knew where there were survivors was supplies to loot. he hid in the shadows waiting for his chance after the zombies were out of the way. He was dressed in stolen swat team body armor, and had a bandana covering his face, he had been a thief long before the apocalypse, so this was nothing new or complicated for him.

"My lucky day." He laughed as he noticed the bag of supplies over Celia,the farthest one from the groups shoulder.

The thief sprang out of the shadows and snuck up on Celia, he then lunged and grabbed at the bag of supplies and tried to yank it off her shoulders.

Celia turned and kneed the thief in the gut loosening his grip on the bag on Celia's shoulders.

The thief reached into his pocket and pulled out a knife and swung at her. Celia grabbed the thief's wrist, clawed his face and pinned his arm behind his back, immobilizing him.

"You alright?" Nick asked Celia.

"I'm fine, him on the other hand I can't guarantee." Celia replied applying pressure on the weasles arm.

"I take it you're not from around here?" The thief said removing the bandana with his free hand revealing his face. A middle aged weasel with a angry look in his eyes a face nick recognized from his days as a hustler.

"Duke weasleton?"" Nick asked as he relaxed his gun a bit.

"Nick!?" The thief now know as Duke recognized nick as well but not in a good way.

"So I guess you guys don't know what's going on around here." Weasleton tried to act more innocent as he was surrounded.

"Why, is there zombies here cause we kinda realized that by now!" Celia replied.

"There's a group up ahead that own this town and they use bodies of zombies and their dead as a wall to keep others out." Weasleton explained. "Obviously you didn't catch the memo, they're not very nice either."

"Oh God." Celia said to herself knowing Judy could be in real danger.

"Judy could be headed right into those guys!" Skye exclaimed.

Nick was shocked to hear if these people were hostile Judy could be in even more trouble than with the zombies.

"Show us where these people are and if they have our friend, we need to know." Nick demanded.

"Why should I?" Weasleton threatened. "What's gonna stop me from leaving you to find out yourself!?"

Nick pulled out his gun and aimed it at weasleton, along with his team "Cause this is your other option!"

"Alright, alright I'll show you!" Weasletons tough ego cracked under pressure. "But after that I can go?"

"Yeah, maybe, just get us there." Nick demanded putting weasleton at the front who started leading them to the group of survivors.

Back with Judy and bellwether.

The sun started to rise above the horizon letting in scarce amoun of sunlight. Bellwether was already awake with a close eye on the horde outside and preparing to head back to her people a few blocks away once the coast was clear. She grabbed her weapons and ammo preparing to move on.

She then turned to see Judy still fast asleep and still unprepared an amature mistake considering even a novice survivalist is always ready for anything and at least has a means of defense handy for emergencies.

"Hey, Hopps get up time to move!" Bellwether exclaimed poking Judy in the side with her shotgun barrel waking judy out of a deep sleep.

Judy sat up half awake rubbing her eyes. "I'm exhausted, can't we wait a little longer?" Judy asked with a groggy voice.

"The herd is starting to thin out we need to quit laying around while we're ahead, before they come back stronger." Bellwether ordered Judy out of bed.

Judy was too tired to argue for more time She would just have to get by on what little rest she got. Judy slowly rose up from her warm bedding to the cold unheated morning air inside the cafe.

Judy slowly walked over to a table where her weapons lay in a neat order. She grabbed her knife and smg, which now strangely had a full 30 bullet magazine loaded and a full spare next to it.

"Don't get too trigger happy that's the only ammo of that kind I had." Bellwether said as Judy holstered the weapon and grabbed her knife.

"You ready?" Bellwether pushed open the rear entrance to the cafe.

"As ready as I'll ever be." Judy walked out of the cafe with bellwether into an alleyway leading to the streets.

There was still many zombies but not as many as last night. It was tough but nothing bellwether couldn't handle.

"Hand me your knife Judy." Bellwether demanded.

"What are you doing?" Judy handed bellwether her knife.

"Saving our lives." Was all bellwether said before scanning the crowd of nearby zombies looking for one about her size.

There was a rabbit zombie crawling along the ground with it's leg bitten and mutilated as if a mammal smaller than it was biting and gnawing on them. "perfect." Bellwether thought as she went and grabbed the zombie by the ears and drug it over to where Judy was standing.

"I hope you're not related to this one." Bellwether said knowing bunnies usually have large family's and many relatives.

"No, he's not." Judy didn't recognize the Bunny's decaying face, but wanted to hope it wasn't one of her family.

"Good, i'll feel less guilty doing this." Bellwether quickly dispatched the rabbit zombie with a kick to the skull. she then stuck the knife in the zombies stomach and cut it open, the stench almost making Judy throw up.

Bellwether then reached into the zombies insides and smeared herself with the blood of the zombie, all over her arms, torso and even some on her face.

"What the hell are you doing!?" Judy shrieked out of shock.

"It's a survival technique, you get their blood on you and they don't know you from one of them." Bellwether explained handing Judy the knife expecting her to do the same.

"You're insane if you think I'm doing that!" Judy tried to keep her voice down.

"I don't like it either but we have to do it to get past them." Bellwether retorted.

Judy sighed and took the knife back and holstered it. She then reluctantly reached into the zombies insides. the cold blood made her skin crawl, she then covered herself with the cold gore, making her almost pass out in shock.

"Is this enough?" Judy asked praying she'd never have to go through this again.

"It'll do for now." Bellwether said taking lead. "Follow me, stay quiet and walk don't run act like you belong and you will."

They started walking right through the crowd of zombies, hiding in plain sight none of the zombies gave the survivors a second thought as they just effortlessly walked past them.

Eventually after wading through walking corpses, they saw an old road sign with a red arrow pointing north. A good sign to bellwether.

"We're close, just a little further." Bellwether urged Judy to hurry up and keep close.

As the blood on judy started to dry and make her skin feel sticky, creating an uncomfortable feeling. "I don't suppose your group has running water?" Judy asked as she couldn't stand the feeling of dried blood.

"Yes we do, but not very much I'm afraid." Bellwether replied.

As Judy and Bellwether rounded the next corner there was a large wooden sign that read "Bellwethers camp, keep out!" Written in red paint.

"Don't let the sign worry you, its just to dissuade any possible bandits." Bellwether explained.

They approached a large wooden gate surrounding an old strip mall, where various stores were repurposed.

Bellwether used a key to unlock a padlock on a wooden door leading into the small community, as she and judy stepped inside, a gunshot rang out and almost hit Bellwether in the head.

"Sorry, wasn't paying attention and thought you were a zombie!" A ram with a rifle yelled out from atop a building.

"Dammit Jesse you almost killed me, again!" Bellwether scolded as she shut and locked the door behind them.

"Let me show you where you can get cleaned up, then I'll show you to the commerce area." Bellwether said as she lead Judy old gym, with old non-functional gym equipment./p

Judy was lead to an old locker room with a shower area the tiles on the wall were busted and the handles and just about everything metal looked rusted. But Judy was suprised to see there was still running water mostly rain and lake water with a limited supply ran from a pump. But was better than nothing.

Just quickly undressed and jumped into the cold stream of water washing the blood off of her and making her cleaner than she has been since the start of the apocalypse. As she had the spare time to think, she thought of how much worry she must have put the team through running off. Do they think she's dead, are they looking for her or did they just count it as a loss and moved on?

After about five minutes the water stopped, as judy exited the shower she found her old police uniform was still coated in blood, no way she's wearing those again, until they were washed, she searched the lockers for an alternative.

Luckily there was still quite alot of clothes left over probably from old patrons of this gym or the camp had plenty of clothes to give out. Judy found an old tank top and sweatpants that looked about her size. She tried them on and liked the look.

Judy sat on one of the benches in the room with nothing else to do. Judy reached into her bag and pulled out the old journal to pour her thoughts into.

"Journal entry 4 day, whatever."

We traveled south trying to reach the burrows in an old car nick and celia found. But as we actually started going we hit a fork in the road. Well more like huge pile of corpses in the middle of the road.

As we tried to find a way around a large group of undead attacked us. Amid the chaos I got cornered and retreated leaving my friends behind. I hope they can understand and forgive me.

Luckily I managed to escape and found the former assistant mayor who was glad to help a fellow survivor. Though experience has taught me not to take many by their word.

Especially ones as different as bellwether."


	17. SSDD

*MERRY CHRISTMAS! to all who follow my story since it began in January, I just want to say thank you, and may your Christmas be merry and your year be new. Here's to a wonderful year of writing for all you folks who enjoy reading this story as much as I've enjoyed writing it, and here's to the new year and in hopes 2018 will bring many more chapters and improvements to my writing, not just for me but for you, the fans.

*Without further ado, here's my (early) Christmas present to you! Remember to like fave and review if you like what you read.*

Nick and his team had followed weasleton for what felt like an hour, Everytime nick even thought they were close, they'd make another turn or have to walk another long road.

"I hope your not just leading us into a trap." Nick threatened as his feet started to feel heavy.

"And what are you going to do if that's the case shoot me?" Weasleton retorted "then you'd never find your girlfriend."

"She's not my girlfriend, she's just part of our team." Nick replied fighting back the urge to punch weasleton.

"Why's it so quiet out here, I thought they'd be around outside practicing on the zombies, or scouting around at least." Celia said uneased by the quietness of the surroundings.

"Trust me, they're nearby." Weasleton replied picking up the pace.

"Hey Nick." Skye got Nick's attention "if we don't find Judy, what will we do?"

"I'm trying not to focus on *if* right now." Nick bluntly replied.

"Just wanting to plan ahead is all." Skye said.

"I just want to find our friend, if we can't, then we'll think of an alternative." Nick shut Skye down.

As weasleton stopped to survey the road around the corner, he turned to the others. "Up ahead is the camp, by the looks of it, someone else was here." Weasleton pointed north.

"How can you tell?" Nick asked as they pressed forward.

"Over there." Weasleton pointed to a corpse of a rabbit with a hole in it's stomach. "Zombies didn't do that, if they did there would be nothing left of it's insides."

"Then who did it?" Nick asked disturbed any living mammal could be so barbaric.

"It's a trick they use, apparently the blood of zombies masks your scent from them, like your invisible." Weasleton explained taking note of the other nearby zombie corpses.

"You know this through experience?" Nick asked suspicious of how weasleton knew about their tactics.

"Well, I used to run with them, I left when things started going downhill." Weasleton explained as he pressed forward.

"Downhill?" Nick asked "how so?"

"The leader started getting all paranoid, thinking everyone not a prey was beneath her. Weasleton brought up his memories from the camp.

"Sounds like someone I'd hate to meet." Nick replied.

"Trust me, you will." Weasleton reassured nick.

The team walked closer and closer to their destination, a large wooden barrier became visible and the various small buildings on the other side.

As they got closer it only seemed to look larger and more intimidating when various other details such as zombie corpses and blood trails leading to the street could be seen.

"Alright, I showed you the camp, can I go now?" Weasleton asked wanting to leave the group and camp behind.

"Not yet, you could still be useful." Nick stopped weasleton, as he could be a bargaining chip if the camp was as hostile as he claimed.

"Get back from the gate!" Nick heard a voice yell from the other side of the gate as he got closer.

"We just need to ask a few questions, no one has to get hurt!" Nick yelled out to whoever was talking, while also backing away.

"Put your weapons down and your hands up!" The voice then called out again. "Our leader will be with you shortly."

Nick did as he was instructed and dropped his weapon to the ground and surrendered.

"Nick, what are you doing,.you could just be giving that guy a clear shot of you!" Celia exclaimed as she refused to lower her weapon.

"Just trust me, if they wanted us dead, we would be." Nick reasoned as he held his paws up in surrender.

Celia finally gave in and dropped her gun and knife to the ground and surrendered, as did Skye, though neither women thought it was a good idea.

Just then the gate opened and out came the white sheep with shotgun in hand.

"What the hell is going on out here." Bellwether asked strictly to Nick and his team. *Great,.more predators.*Bellwether thought to herself, immediately untrusting of nicks team.

Bellwether saw a ferret with orange fur cowering behind Skye, it looked too familiar to her. "Weasleton, Duke weasleton?" Bellwether drew him out of his hiding spot.

"You know him, he said he was a friend of yours." Nick announced hoping this would gain more trust.

"Friend isn't exactly the word I'd use, more like frienemy!" She asked pointing her shotgun, giving nick a strange sense of deja Vu. "But what do you people want, I doubt you came here just to turns someone in."

"We're just here to ask you about our friend, she ran off last night and we need help." Nick explained himself. "Maybe we trade, one trouble maker for one of our friends!"

"What does this friend of yours look like?" Bellwether asked.

"A rabbit, her name is Judy." Nick answered hoping for a positive response. "Maybe she came across here."

"Who is she to you?" Bellwether asked keeping an eye for any signs of deception.

"She's our friend, so if you have her here, she better be unharmed." Nick replied intimidating bellwether.

Bellwether lowered her shotgun. "Yeah, she's with us, but you're gonna have to come with me to meet her, just to make sure you're not lying." Bellwether lowered her gun and invited the team inside the camp.

As Nick and the others walked inside a group of armed survivors gathered round, nick especially was given dirty looks from the mostly prey survivors and ones of sympathy from the very few predator survivors. Nothing he wasn't already used to.

Bellwether asked one of the guards there to keep a close eye on weasleton and not let him out of their sights.

Bellwether led the team to the room Judy was still waiting in and led Nick inside.

"Judy, I have someone here who says he's with you." Bellwether said as Nick stood beside her.

"Nick!?" Judy jumped up from the seat she was sitting in, and ran to greet him.

"Judy, you survived!" Nick gleefully cheered. "I mean, I knew you would." Nick tried not to doubt Judy.

"I'm sorry for leaving you guys, there was so many, and I just couldn't!..." Before Judy could finish her sentence, she was cut off by Nick who pulled her into a hug.

Judy was taken back at first, but accepted it and hugged nick back. "I thought you'd be mad!" Judy said.

"Why would I be mad, you're still alive, that's all that matters." Nick broke the hug. "But seriously though, never do that again."

"I can't take all the credit for surviving, I learned from one of the best survivors." Judy said as she playfully punched Nicks arm.

"So these really are your friends." Bellwether said as she watched the whole scene unfold. "You've probably been through alot to get here, maybe I could let you have a drink before you have to leave."

"Sure, i could use a drink, after all the crap we had to do to get here." Nick let Bellwether lead the way.

Bellwether led the team to a small bar with mostly prey animals drinking and conversing among themselves, and a single predator serving drinks behind the bar, with hardly a thanks from the prey patrons.

As the team walked in some heads turned in their direction, along with faint whispers among the patrons.

"Just go up to the bar and have yourself a beer or two." Bellwether pointed as she left the team to hang out for awhile.

Judy and nick sat together at the bar, while Skye and Celia took a seat at one of the tables.

As nick sat down, a pig in the seat next to him got up and moved a few seats down.

A leopard dressed in a blue hoodie and blue jeans came up. "I've never seen you guys around here before, you must be new." He said in a soft voice.

"We're just passing through." Nick gave a short reply as the leopard started pouring glasses of alcohol.

"My name's Gregory, I used to work here before the corpses started walking." He said sliding the full to the brim glasses of alcohol to both Nick and Judy.

Nick picked up his glass, as he put the glass to his mouth his nose stung from the smell. "This smells like turpentine." Nick said disgusted as he set the glass down.

"That's just the weak stuff, lightweight." Gregory laughed, when he did, nick noticed Gregory's sharp teeth were missing.

"What happened to your teeth, if you don't mind me asking." Nick asked.

"Oh that?" Gregory's tone changed. "It's what they do to most predators who live here." He the bare spot in his gums with his tongue.

"They remove your sharp teeth?" Judy asked as she too noticed the missing teeth.

"They're really weary of predators here, not saying it's right, but it's true." Gregory warned Nick.

"Why are you telling me this?" Nick asked.

Before gregory could respond, another patron down the bar called for him.

After hearing Gregory's warning, Judy looked to Nick in concern, which Nick noticed.

"He said they do it to those who live here, we're just passing through." Nick said calming Judys worries.

"I just don't want the preys here trying anything." Judy replied in a concerned whisper.

"You worry too much, carrots." Nick said taking another small drink.

"Carrots?" Judy asked confused.

"Just a nickname, cause you know, bunnies like carrots." Nick tried not to sound too speciest.

"Oh, just cause I'm a bunny I have to like carrots, for all you know I could hate carrots." Judy replied.

"Well, do you?" Nick asked hoping he didn't offend Judy.

"No, I love them, but you would've looked really stupid if I didn't" Judy bantered with Nick playfully dropping the seriousness.

Celia and Skye on the other hand were finally interacting and managed to make small talk.

"Quite an impressive place, working bar, well kept." Cecelia tried to start conversation with Skye.

"Its nice, but places like this are usually built on bad blood, just remember there was a time we thought Jack's stadium was a nice place." Skye said with a hint of pessimism.

"Good point, I guess." Celia's throat was starting to get dry and her tongue thirsted for water. "Hey, I'm gonna grab a drink, want one.?" She asked.

"Just see if they have any soda or water." Skye replied. "I dont wanna get drunk on anything."

As Celia quickly sprang out of her seat, she didn't see a ram carrying two pints of beer and ran head on into him, which spilled the alcohol all over him and Celia.

"Shit, sorry." Celia apologized quickly.

"Watch where you're going, predator." The ram scolded Celia before walking off.

"Excuse me." Skye called out gaining the Rams attention "I think you owe my friend an apology, it was just an accident, no need to bring species into this."

Celia was surprised to see Skye stand up for her, but thought it better not to question it.

"Dumb cat should've watched were she was going." The ram retorted getting in Celia's face.

"You didn't see her getting up, or do you have too much wool under your eyes?" Skye fought back.

"Also, i'm not a cat, I'm a civet, it's not the same thing!" Celia yelled out as she hated being categorized as a cat.

"What's the difference, most of you felines look the same anyway." The ram blurted out.

Celia bared her teeth and showed her claws. "That's it, you're done." Celia drew back and clawed the ram right in the face, leaving streaks of blood on his face.

All sound in the bar drowned out as all eyes turned to face Cecelia.

The ram fell heavily onto the floor, he got up and wiped the blood off his face. "That all you got?" He asked threateningly.

"Seemed to be enough." Celia taunted standing over the ram.

"Don't be too sure." The ram got back up and punched Celia in the face, making her stumble back.

Celia retaliated by pouncing on the ram and punching his face over and over before Nick, who didn't want to cause more trouble than needed, ran in and pulled Celia off of him.

"Enough!" He yelled standing in her way.

"You're taking his side!?" Celia yelled back in anger.

"I SAID ENOUGH!" Nick yelled louder, making Celia finally back down.

The door to the bar swung open and Bellwether came in to see what the noise was, she saw a ram with a clawed and bruised face and Celia with blood on her paws.

"What the hell happened here?" Bellwether approached Celia.

"It was just a small fight, some drunk idiot was harassing her." Nick stepped in to Celia's defense.

"Look at him he's barely conscious, id hardly call that a small fight!" Bellwether pointed out.

"This guy was being a speciest asshole." Celia aggressively blurted out. "By the sound of it, he was long overdue for an attitude adjustment."

"Regardless, violence of this kind is not acceptable, you could've killed him." Bellwether replied grabbing Celia by the arm.

Celia broke out of Bellwethers grip. "What are you doing!"

"You're going where all the other trouble makers in this camp go!" Bellwether explained.

"Like hell she is!" Nick stood stepped in. "The ram started everything."

"I'm finishing it!" Bellwether snapped back. "If you can't keep your team in check, then I guess I'll have to."

Nick tried to keep cool to deter violence, but it was starting to become difficult.

"If you're gonna take her side, maybe you should join her too." Bellwether said.

"Looks like the rules don't apply to everyone." Skye chimed in. "We get harassed and we're getting punished for fighting back."

"But maybe she's right." Judy spoke up. "She took it too far, he's not even conscious."

"Judy, what the hell!" Nick was surprised at Judy's response. "You're taking her side on this!?'

"What that ram did was horrible, but Celia didn't have to beat him with an inch of his life." Judy explained, making sure she was understood.

Bellwether seemed pleased with Judy's response. "See, even she agrees with me, now you three come with me." Bellwether led nick, Celia, and Skye over too her.

"You can't be serious right now!" Nick exclaimed.

Bellwether turned to Judy. "You, thanks for actually having some sense, meet me later, I need aword with you." Bellwether led nick, Skye and Celia out of the camp, back to the front gate, leaving them out there with nothing but the few provisions they brought.

"Now you stay out here, in the morning I might allow you back in." Bellwether advised.

"What about Judy, shes part of our team too." Nick asked.

"Don't worry about her, nick." Bellwether replied. "She'll be in good company!" Bellwether shut the gates leaving nick and his team out in the open.

*I know this may be a bit of a short/rushed chapter, but it's midnight, and Im just wanting to post another chapter before Christmas, so hope you guys enjoyed and the next part to the chapter coming soon.*


	18. Message in a bottle

Bellwether had came back into the camp, after leaving Judy's team out in the open, she was met by Judy who followed her out there to make sure they would be safe.

"Will my friends be okay out there?" Judy asked Bellwether standing near the gates.

"They'll be fine, this is just part of their punishment." Bellwether responded as the gates closed. " We can talk about this elsewhere."

Judy was worrying about nick and what he would think about her after all she did, save her life, offer her a place among his group, and in return she's done nothing but put them in more danger, nick plays it off like he doesn't care, but eventually he will.

Bellwether led Judy to an old, emptied out thrift store Bellwether used as her base, there were guards and survivors there keeping a close eye on her, Judy was led to a back room with a table and two chairs.

"Here, sit." Bellwether sat down at the desk while Judy took a seat on a chair in front of it.

"About my friends..." Judy was cut off by Bellwether.

"What your friend did was unacceptable, I ought to punch her lights out myself, but Jesse never was the nicest ram to be honest." Bellwether explained. "So maybe you're not entirely unjustified."

"Then why are my friends being punished!?" Judy asked. "They were only protecting themselves."

"Because they are dangerous, if you insist on having your predator friends with you, they have to conform to a few rules here." Bellwether replied. "It's to make sure things like this never happens again."

"Let me guess, you're gonna rip out their sharp teeth!" Judy yelled.

"You've been talking with Gregory haven't you?" Bellwether asked suprised she figured it out so quickly, there was no reason to act innocent anymore. "We also remove their claws, it's to make sure when they turn or get too angry, they're not as dangerous."

"Celia maybe went too far, but she nor anyone else on my team deserves that!" Judy argued standing up and getting in Bellwethers face.

"That ram she attacked is unconscious and his face is covered in bandages, we haven't had trouble like that with our prey survivors." Bellwether took a more strict tone.

"He attacked first, if Celia didn't defend herself, she'd be in the same situation!" Judy argued. "I won't let you get away with treating innocent predators like this."

"I'm in charge here, I'll get away with whatever I want!" Bellwether exclaimed. "If you refuse, then you can go join them!"

"Gladly!" Judy jumped from her seat and slammed the door behind her as she left the room.

As Judy approached the gate, the leopard Gregory stopped her. "Hey wait!"" He beckoned.

"What is it?" Judy stopped.

"You should take this." He handed an empty whiskey bottle with a rolled up piece of paper in it.

"What is this?" She questioned holding the bottle in her hand.

"I heard that argument between you and Bellwether." He explained. "I know you have no reason to, but just trust me, and you won't regret it."

Gregory led Judy back with her friends outside the gate.

"Judy?" Nick said suprised she'd been thrown out there with them.

"Did you want to see the underside of the bus you threw us under?" Celia said, disappointed Judy got them all thrown out.

"What did you do to get thrown out?" Skye asked out of curiosity, knowing Judy had to do worse than Celia to get thrown out.

"I'm sorry for getting you all thrown out." Judy genuinely apologized. "But I didn't agree with Celia's actions."

"So you just leave us out here while you get off free!" Celia exclaimed.

"I probably just saved you guys, Bellwether was going to remove your claws and teeth!" Judy replied to Celia. "I wasn't going to let her torture you, so how about a thank you!"

"Regardless, Bellwether said she'd let us back in the morning, we can explain our side then." Skye explained calming tensions.

"There will be no explaining, she told me what she was going to do." Judy interrupted Skye. "Either you get your teeth and claws removed, or you join the pile of corpses a few blocks down."

"Let's just leave then, obviously we aren't welcome here." Nick suggested ready to lead the team away.

"Where will we go, the streets could be filled with the zombies!" Celia asked.

"Maybe this could give us an answer." Judy remembered the message in a bottle, she took the heavy glass bottle and smashed it on the ground, making the message inside slip out.

She took the rubber band off the rolled up paper, unraveled and read the message on the paper.

"In the abandoned church at dawn." The paper read, with a small map of the location drawn below the message, it wasn't too far away.

"This could be a trap." Celia cautioned.

"It could also be better than being tortured in there." Judy rationalized.

"Better than dying at least." Nick started walking ahead to lead the team.

Judy stuck close to Nick, he seemed calm. "Hey, I'm sorry for getting you kicked out." Judy said hoping nick wouldn't be mad.

"It's fine." Nick simply replied. "You worry too much."

"That's it?" Judy asked confused. "You're not mad?"

"I'm disappointed we got kicked out." Nick replied. "But at least you stood up to Bellwether and got us out of there, most importantly you're back with us, which is what we came there for anyway."

"You're always so glad to have me around?" Judy asked jokingly.

"Who wouldn't be?" Nick complimented.

"I guess you certainly are." Judy blushed light pink at Nick's complement.

A zombie badger jumped suddenly from the shadows, startling the unprepared nick, Judy however quickly kicked the zombies knee, sending it crashing to the ground,.and stabbed it in the head, like nick taught her.

"Nice one, Carrots." Nick commended Judy as he himself was reaching for his gun.

"I learned that one from the best." Judy replied as she removed the knife from the Badgers skull, looking around for anymore infected.

"Looks like he was alone." Nick said leading his team forward.

"According to the map, the church is just a few blocks away." Judy observed the map as the team pressed onwards.

* * *

In Bellwethers camp, the leopard Gregory had closed his bar down early to run some personal errands, he grabbed a bag of equipment he hid from everyone else under the counter, which included a .45 pistol, knife and a survival kit he took from the camp provisions.

He got these supplies ready, as he turned around he noticed the sheep Bellwether standing at the locked door, looking at him impatiently. Not wanting to look suspicious, Gregory unlocked the bar doors and let Bellwether in.

"Something you need dawn?" He asked.

"Just wanted to see how you're doing after that nasty fight." Bellwether responded. "You must be shaken up, there's still blood on the floor too."

"It's no big deal, nothing steel wool and bleach won't fix." Gregory stood behind the bar, hoping Bellwether didn't see the backpack laying on the counter.

"Rest assured, tomorrow we'll deal with that cat and her friends." Bellwether said as she noticed Gregory acting nervous.

"Sorry, but you gotta go, I'm closing." He quickly made his excuse, hurrying Bellwether to the door.

"Why are you so fidgety?" Bellwether asked Gregory irritated. "It's awful early to close too, what are you up to?" She started to get suspicious.

"Nothing, just wanted to go walking around outside the gates, it's not good being couped up in a bar twenty-four seven." He explained hoping Bellwether would buy it.

"You sure go on alot of walks nowadays Gregory." Bellwether said. "You up to something?"

"Good for the soul, and keeps me in top shape." Gregory was starting to lose his cool.

"Ok, try to bring back any supplies you can find while you're at it, at least make your walks beneficial to us as well." Bellwether saw herself out.

Gregory breathed a sigh of relief, he can't believe he pulled it off, Gregory re-locked the door to the bar as he went out to the gates of the camp and into the city.

* * *

back with nick and his team.

They had finally arrived at their destination, the old church, chipped paint, blood and debris ruined the atmosphere of a holy building.

"This is the place." Judy said double checking the map.

"Looks like we aren't the first ones here, keep your guard up." Nick went for the door as Celia and Skye stacked up on one side of the door and Judy behind Nick.

Nick busted the door down, he stepped cautiously inside the dark church, using his natural night vision as a guide. he stepped his right foot down, only to step on something soft and wrapped in plastic.

he looked down and saw What he had stepped on was a bouquet of flowers, next to that in the pews of the church were two mammals, one rabbit in a suit and bunny in a wedding gown and various other mammals In formal wear.

"Oh my god." Nick lowered his weapon out of shock as he realized what was going on here.

"This was a wedding?" Judy asked shocked at the scene before her.

"They look recent, like they only died a few days ago." Skye observed.

"I doubt even jack could be so heartless." Celia noted as even she was disturbed at the thought of such brutality.

Judy walked over to the bride, she looked so much like her, it was scary to think this could've been her if nick hadn't saved her.

"We should probably-" as Nick started to talk, the bride sprang to life and jumped at him, pinning the surprised fox to the ground.

As the zombie was about to bite nick, Judy stabbed it in the back of the head, and kicked the corpse off of Nick.

"This feels familiar." Nick said acknowledging the irony of Judy saving him now.

"Guess we're even now." Judy said back helping Nick to his feet.

The other rabbit zombie also sprang to life, only to get shot by nick, luckily the other corpses in the church stayed down.

As Skye and Celia went to work checking the other corpses, Nick inspected a photo on the wall of the church, depicting the junior ranger scouts after doing charity work, he even saw the kids who bullied, and muzzled him because he was a predator trying to fit in with preys, half of nicks mind wanted to think they survived and are better mammals, but there was an even bigger part of him hoping they got what they deserved.

"They look so happy, too bad that was so long ago." Judy said looking at the aged picture, these days it was rare to see kids smiling.

Nick however didn't share the same thoughts, his anger came out as he punched the glass frame, shattering the glass and knocking the photo to the ground.

"Its all just evidence of the old world now." Nick said picking bits of glass from his paw.

"Are you OK?" Judy asked concerned from Nick's outburst. "What's so wrong with that photo?"

"It's a long story, Carrots." Was all Nick said as he sat himself at one of the pews, holding his head in his bloodied paws. "Let's just leave the mystery for now."

Judy didn't reply but sat herself next to nick, she could hear him quietly whimper to himself. She wrapped her arms around nick and rested her head on his shoulder.

Nick didn't say anything but wrapped his arm back around Judy, holding her close, he may not have had many people he could trust growing up, but he was lucky to have someone like Judy around now.


	19. Enemy of our enemy

Skye sat in the church admiring the statue of the churches religious deity, she was never religious growing up, but recent events led her to a small interest, maybe the team could use the spiritual assistance and guidance, after all what harm could it do?

There was a bible sitting in one of the chairs, she picked it up and flipped to the middle.

she felt a sense of calm reflection and release as she sat back into the pew flipping through the text and learning, before she heard Celia's voice next to her ear.

"Hey." Celia simply said hoping she wasn't being a bother.

"You need something?" Skye asked as she closed the book and pocketed it.

"I never thanked you for standing up for me back in the camp, when that sheep was being an asshole." Celia said thankfully. "Or the time you saved me in Jack's camp."

"It was nothing, you'd have done the same." Skye replied. "You would've, right?"

"Yes I would've, just didn't expect it from you." Celia started to open up a little more, she sat next to Skye.

"Cause I'm from Jack's camp, so I gotta be bad right?" She said as she stared to get closer to Celia.

"Well, I just thought since I wasn't very trusting of you at first, and I was a trouble maker." Celia replied.

"I never thought you were that bad, even back then, you're rough around the edges sure, but your heart is always in the right place, that's more than what could be said for most people nowadays." Skye complimented. "You're kinda a rare find."

"No ones ever told me that before." Celia blushed.

"No one probably ever got to know you that well." Skye replied placing a friendly hand on Celia's shoulder.

"You're not so bad yourself y'know." Celia's emotions started going wild, ever since the outbreak she had been mostly treated with hostility, it was nice to have someone who was like a real friend for once.

In a second, celia placed a small kiss on Skyes cheek, as soon as she realized what she did, there was already an awkward silence as Skye held her cheek in suprise.

"O-ok." Skye weakly said in shock.

"So, I'll just go sit over there." Celia said breaking the silence and quickly shuffling off to a different seat.

"Yea, you go do that." Skye didn't know what else to say.

Celia could only stare to the ground as her face turned bright red, she silently cursed herself. "That was such a dumb move, why did I do that, she probably thinks i'm such a weirdo now."

Skye sat there avoiding looking to her left in fear her eyes would meet with Celias and the awkwardness would return, she could still feel the coldness of Celias lips on her cheek. "Does she like me in that way, could I like her back in the same way?" She thought to herself.

As the survivors were all situated with their own personal dilemmas, the church doors opened once again, putting each survivor back on their feet and ready for an attack.

"Hello?" A familiar male voice called out.

"Who are you, don't try anything!" Judy threatened with her gun.

As the figure in the door way stepped in holding his hands up in surrender, it became clearer who it was, a leopard in a blue hoodie with a bat strapped to his back.

"Don't remember me?" Gregory asked in a laid back tone.

"Gregory?" Judy asked confused.

"The bartender?" Nick asked,just as confused. "The hells he doing here?" He kept his paw on his still holstered weapon.

"I don't know." Judy wasnt as paranoid as the others, she felt a calmness about Gregory, not like the other survivors she meets.

"If you'll allow me, I'd like to explain why I brought you here." He said as the stepped deeper into the church.

"Was it for an ambush?" Celia asked stepping in front of him.

"Yea, why should we listen to someone on bellwethers side?" Skye asked.

"You don't understand, I want to help you guys." He said looking to Nick. "You there, you're the leader, can you tell your group here to stand down?"

"Wait, let's hear him out before we do anything harsh." Nick said urging everyone to stand down.

"You sure about this,we don't even know this guy." Skye asked. "He could be working with bellwether."

"If he was, you think he would've come alone?" Nick asked as he put his gun away, Skye complied and holstered her weapon as well.

"Thank you, now that we got formalities out of the way, let's get down to what I have to say." Gregory lowered his paws. "We all here have something in common, we all have been wronged by former mayor assistant bellwether, some more than others." He looked over to Celia.

"What's your point?" Nick interuppted.

"I have a small group of allies in bellwethers camp mostly predator, she thinks they're tame, that they can't hurt her, but they're ready for a change in leadership, with your help we're gonna dethrone that bitch!" Gregory preposed his plan.

"Well you got me interested." Celia agreed as she stood beside Gregory.

"Yeah, I'm in." Nick agreed. "Carrots?" Nick glanced at Judy waiting for her approval.

"I go where you go slick." Judy said jokingly.

"I haven't doubted you yet nick, ain't gonna start now." Skye said as she joined the group.

"Great, I knew you guys were just what I needed." Gregory said thankful he found the group he needed to complete his plan.

"What's first,how do we strike back." Nick asked as the team stood in a close huddle.

"My team will work inside the camp, you guys will be external help, in fact we already have a first mission for you, simple and non violent, hopefully." Gregory said.

"Whats the mission?" Nick asked.

"Theres a group in an old motel, all preys and desperate, bellwether has had small dealings with them, I don't think the group knows what she really is, but you'll get to them and convince them to join our side." Gregory stated.

"Sounds like my kind of thing, but I'll need a tag along in case things go south." Nick accepted the task.

"Take this, if they expect something in return." Gregory handed nick a small plastic bag of food and even a bottle of alcohol.

"I'll go with you." Judy volunteered. "They said its all prey, maybe it'll be less threatening if its not all predators going up to them."

"I gotta get back to some business in camp, bellwether will get suspicious if I'm fine for long, feel free to use the church as a base." Gregory walked to the exit and gave the team a thumbs up for luck before leaving them in their improvised base.

"Have fun." Celia backed out and went back to her seat.

"The Apocalypse isn't about fun." Nick joked as he left the church with Judy to to their mission.

Skye walked to Celia, intending to ask what happened earlier.

"So about earlier." Celia blurted out before Skye could get her words out.

"Don't worry, I'm not mad or anything, just why though?" Skye said cutting off Celia. "Do you really like me in that way?"

"Kinda, I think you're nice and its been lonely with me for awhile, I guess I just needed to let out a little emotion." Celia explained hoping she didn't come off as desperate.

"What about nick, he seems pretty nice?" Skye suggested.

"I think he's more into Judy, you seen the lengths nick went through just to save her, the way he looks at her, and they're always together." Celia said shooting the thought down. "Don't really wanna intrude on it."

"I think you're nice too, but I don't know if I feel the same you do." Skye replied trying to let her down gently.

"Well look around, there's not many others left, its fine if you don't, but if you're willing to give it a shot, maybe you'll like it?" Celia said half seductively.

Skye considered her point, it didn't have to be serious, but maybe a distraction beside zombie killing and dealing with hostile groups. "Maybe give me time to think about it, we're in no rush." Skye said.

Celia gave Skye a small kiss. "Just a taste, you know where to find me if you change your mind." Celia took a seat on one of the pews leaving Skye to her thoughts.

* * *

Back with nick and Judy.

There was an eerie silence lingering in the streets, more than usual, a thin layer of fog swept the streets and the humidity grew, it certainly made an uncomfortable scene.

"Perfect atmosphere don't you think, like the old zombie movies." Judy said breaking the silence.

"Reminds me of being a kit and staying up all night watching night of the living dead, who would've thought we'd be in the same situation." Nick replied.

"With me it was with old monster movies, so funny to think I found those so scary when I was a kit." Judy recollected. "Now the monsters are real."

"Maybe we could make our own zombie movie, all we need is a camera." Nick joked around.

"We already have the effects and the actors." Judy bantered back with a smile.

Up ahead was a neon sign, it wasn't lit up but the word motel could be made out and a junk fence surrounded the perimeter.

"Must be the place right here." Nick said as he went up to the half open gate, suspicious considering who was looking for them.

Nick peeked through the cracks and saw noting but a bunch of junk scattered across the parking lot. He creaked the gate open and tip-toed his way inside with Judy right behind him.

Before nick could react, he felt a heavy fist strike his face, as he recovered, he was met with a few figures smaller than him aiming weapons at him and Judy. Nick calmed his demeanor and put his paws up.

"Hold it right there, what makes you think you can walk into our camp!?" A scruffy male voice yelled out.

"I need to speak to whoever's in charge, its important." Nick informed the group surrounding them.

"What for, what makes us think you're trustworthy?" The male voice asked.

"I'm not expecting tea and cakes, I just need to warn you about bellwethers group." Nick said losing his patience.

Judy facepalmed. "Nick you're going to get us killed." She mumbled under her breath.

"You mean the group up ahead, we've had small dealing with them before, we even had a few of our own group join them." The mammal said as he walked into the light, revealing a tall deer, dressed in mostly black.

"Let me guess, they asked for the predators only?" Nick asked.

"I just thought it was just for the extra muscle, what else could it have been?" The deer answered nicks question with a question.

"Its cause their leader wants to control predators, when predators join them they're forced to have their teeth and claws ripped out, it almost happened to my friends." Judy said hoping to talk some sense into the camps "leader"

"Now that you say it, they had a wide grin when they took the predators, if what you say is true, they could be in trouble." The deer replied.

"In the morning there'll be a leopard coming by to tell you more, and here before I forget." Nick dropped the peace offering bag on the ground at the deer's feet.

"I take it this means no hostilities?" The deer unpacked the bag and immediately went for the alcohol, it was such a rarity, it was basically the new gold. "Alright you've convinced me."

"Good, now if you don't mind, we got to get back to our own group." Nick turned to the exit with a wave, as Judy slowly followed him out.

"Wait!" The deer called out. "Take this." He tossed a shotgun towards nicks way. "Consider this my peace offering." He said as he took his alcohol and walked back into his camp.

Judy picked up the shotgun, it was a pump action, fully loaded and had a small bag of ammo taped to it. "Always wanted one of these." Judy said as she admired the beautiful weapon.

"How powerful is it?" Nick asked as he never really used shotguns.

"I don't know, let's see." Judy said as she saw an infected hippo just down the street, she whistled gaining its attention, before blowing a hole straight through its gut, before finishing it off with the last bullet of her SMG.

"Wow." Was all Nick could say as he was speechless for once.

"What do you think zombie kill of the week?" Judy asked as she put the shotgun on her back.

"I ever tell you you're a badass?" Nick asked as he pulled himself together.

"You have now." Judy said as she and nick started off towards the church base.

"Just remember you learned from the original." Nick joked, giving Judy a small chuckle.


	20. Internal affairs

Gregory returned to camp without anyone ever noticing his departure. He started towards his home/bar, his only place of solace he had in Bellwethers prison of a camp.

The door his bar was unlocked even though he swore he locked it right before he left. He cautiously opened the door keeping an eye out for anyone or anything.

"Oh hey spots!" Behind the counter was Jesse, the ram who was beaten by Celia, red bandages covered his face and a tall glass of liquor sat on the counter.

"Don't drink too much, you know what Bellwether does to those who can barely stand." Gregory harbored strong feeling towards Jesse, even before his fight with Celia.

"Fuck off, you're the only one with alcohol." Jesse took a loud annoying drink from his glass. "I'll find that little loud mouth cat and God help me when I do!"

"The fight was your fault and it wasnt the first either." Gregory defended. "Maybe the problem is a little more personal."

"Look at my face you think a prey could do something this Savage, I only tolerate you cause you don't have claws anymore." Jesse finished the small amount of liquor in his cup and slammed it on the table upside down.

"That's enough for you, anymore and you'll walk and smell like a zombie." Gregory slid the glass down the Bar away from the drunken ram.

"You killed my buzz anyway!" Jesse almost faceplanted when he stood back up. "Fuckin cat telling me when I've had enough." He mumbled as he stumbled out the door leaving Gregory to deal with the rams mess.

"They'll let anyone stay here." Gregory mumbled to himself as he started tidying the place before bed.

* * *

The next morning in the church "base". Nick lied on the floor with only two sheets he found. One to lay on and one for very little protection from the cold.

The sunlight creeping in shined through nicks closed eyelids, as he turned his body from the bright rays he could feel something warm and fuzzy in his arms.

Judy was layibg next to him, her soft breaths providing little warmth from the harsh morning weather. Nick sat still not wanting to wake her up.

Just as nick was starting to get used to the feeling,, Judy awoke with a yawn.

"Morning." Nick said to the waking bunny.

"Oh hey." Judy grumbled in a tired voice stretching her tired arms and sitting upright.

"Sleep well?" Nick asked unwrapping Judy's arm from his waist.

"Sorry, it was so cold last night, and you didn't seem to mind." Judy scooted away from nick.

"I feel like I haven't eaten anything in ages." Nick said as his stomach loudly growled.

"That reminds me, I grabbed these when we left your camp." Judy dug through the bag of new-topias supplies and presented a bag of blueberries she grew in her garden.

Nicks eyes widened as he snatched the small plastic bag and ripped it open.

"You're welcome." Judy said as nick started eating one after another.

"How did you know these were my favorite?" Nick said as he swallowed his mouthful.

"I saw you taking them from the old greenhouse before when you thought i wasn't looking." Judy took a bag of carrots from the bag for herself.

"The burrows, the family picture, carrot farming, is there any part of you not homesick?" Nick asked as he noticed the bundle of carrots.

"No, there's things about the present I enjoy." Judy replied staring into Nick's eyes.

"Oh, really, like what, the psyco survivors, the zombies?" Nick replied sarcastically.

"Not just that, but the handsome fox I get to enjoy it all with." Judy flirted with blushing cheeks.

"You're pretty cute yourself." Nick flirted back, laying on his usual charm.

Judy didn't say anything as the moment was perfect enough, she leaned in with her lips pursed and locked them with Nicks,

"Never call a bunny cute!" Judy whispered in nicks ear after she broke the kiss.

Nicks heart was beating too loud to hear Judy so he just sat there with the same sly smile on his face.

"I now pronounce you fox and wife." They heard Gregory say right next to them.

"Oh, you're here?" Nick said as he and Judy got up, ready for another day in the Apocalypse.

"Yes and I have good news, I talked to that settlement and they agreed to help." Gregory informed.

"Great, so what now?" Nick asked.

"Next we sneak you back into camp." Gregory said, confusing the team.

"You wanna sneak us back into that pit?!" Celia questioned.

"Hear me out, we sneak you back in and we attack from the inside out and kill bellwether." Gregory laid out his plan.

"That's fine and all, but how do you plan on doing that?" Skye asked just as skeptical.

"The settlement we talked to he agreed to lead a a charge from the gates, Celia and you will assist them all we have to do is get Nick and Judy back behind our gates for the internal attack."

"Sounds good on paper, but what about everything that can go wrong." Celia once again piped up.

"Is there a better idea in your head?" Skye asked glad she has an easier role. "Besides at least we don't have to go back to that camp."

"So its settled?" Gregory asked wrapping up the meeting and tossing a wallie talkie to Skye. "Keep an ear out."

"Will do." Skye clipped the radio to her belt as Gregory took nick and judy back to the camp.

In Bellwethers camp, around the side there was a loose board in one of the parts of the massive wooden wall surrounding the camp. Gregory pushed it slightly to the side checking for guards through the opening, there was only a lone guard standing not ten feet away smoking a cigarette.

"See anything?" Nick whispered.

"Just one guy, but I got this." Gregory took the board from the wall, snuck up on the unsuspecting guard and struck him in the back of the head with it.

As the guard hit the floor Gregory hurried Judy and nick into the camp before putting the board back into the wall to hide it.

"Sure no one will find him?" Judy asked looking down on the unconscious guard being dragged to away by nick.

"Don't worry about him, he'll wake up soon." Nick brushed it off as he put the guard in a dumpster.

Gregory pened the doors to the bar and went inside with Nick and Judy. He flipped on the lights and locked the door behind him.

"Dont mind the mess on the the floor." Gregory pointed out the small red stain from Celia's brawl.

"Think we're afraid of blood?" Nick asked.

Judy and nick shared a seat at one of the booths, it was awkward trying to start conversation after earlier, Judy sat close to nick pressing up against him as if she expected him to put his arm around her.

Nick finally caught on and wrapped his arm around and held her close.

"So I guess earlier was serious." Nick joked as Judy rested her head on Nicks shoulder.

"Earlier, at the church?" Judy curiously asked. "It was serious, I just couldn't put to words how thankful I am for you, you risked your life just for me, even if I didn't deserve it for putting it at risk to begin with."

"You were surrounded and I didn't help you, I'm more to blame." Nick regretfully said. "I'm glad I can be a positive influence, the wrong people can lead to another Jack Savage situation."

"Don't compare yourself to him." Judy stopped Nick before he ruined the moment.

Just as everyone was getting comfortable Gregory started searching for his written plans behind the bar, which were not where he remembered putting them.

Gregory stood up and saw a figure approaching the bar door with hurried and hard steps as if they were angry.

"Fuck." Gregory said under his breath. "Bellwethers coming, hide now!" Gregory walked outside to distract Bellwether.

"Hey, bellwether what a suprise." Gregory hid his urgency behind false courage, stopping Bellwether at the door step.

"Don't act innocent, every night you sneak away and don't return for hours!" Bellwether sternly confronted Gregory. "I'm starting to think there's more to this than just scavenging!"

Bellwether pushed Gregory aside and shoved the bar doors open, luckily nick and judy had found themselves places to hide beforehand.

"Thank god" Gregory thought to himself as Bellwether started searching around the place.

Nicks ears were visibly sticking out from behind the bar counter, Gregory stood in front of the bar hiding the two orange ears before Bellwether could notice them.

As Bellwether was searching around the tables she felt her foot squish something on the ground. There was a flattened blueberry with it's juice staining the carpet, along with a few undamaged ones on a seat.

"Care to explain this?" Bellwether picked up an undamaged blueberry and held it in Gregory's face.

"What can I say, I really like blueberries." Gregory played it cool.

"We don't grow blueberries here!" Bellwether got close to .Gregory's face. "That's the part that worries me!"

Nicks eyes widened as he remembered the blueberries Judy gave him, they must've fallen out of his pocket.

"I found those while scavenging there wasn't many so in kept them." Gregory said hoped bellwether would buy his excuse. "Is that a problem?"

"Maybe next time hide them better." Bellwethers demeanor calmed as she put the blueberry down on the counter. "Just be back earlier from your walks and this won't be a normal thing."

"Maybe you should go rest, its pretty late." Gregory tried to hurry the conversation up. "There's nothing here miss Bellwether "

"I can rest plenty when I'm dead." Bellwether headed for the door to the bar. "You on the other hand have a long life ahead of you." She pushed open the bar doors and left Gregorys bar.

"That was close." Nick sighed as Bellwether left.

"Why cause she almost caught you?" Gregory asked sarcastically.

"No cause I thought she would've taken my blueberries." Nick beat Gregory at the sarcasm game. "Of course cause she almost caught us!"

"So what now?" Judy interrupted before the sarcasm battle turned serious.

"We wait for the word from Skye and the outside team." Gregory took a seat at one of the tables.

"That sounds boring." Nick playfully complained.

"Oh, I can keep you busy." Judy suggestively said.

Nick for once couldn't come up with something witty to say, but just went with it.

"There's a back room with a bed you can use." Gregory pointed out, letting the survivors have their fun.

Judy dragged Nick by his hands to the back room, making Nick gulp in nervousness from her strength. As Gregory searched for his misplaced plans and tried to ignore the sounds from down the bar.

* * *

Meanwhile back in the church.

Skye sat in the church pews with her mind amid the clouds thinking back to old, better times. When she didn't have to kill people who were already dead, when she didn't have to sleep with a gun next to her praying a zombie wouldn't cut her throat with it's teeth as she slept.

Celia on the other hand didn't do good with sitting doing nothing, she sat in the pews sighing as every ticking second felt like a minute. She debated to herself whether she wanted to walk over and attempt a non awkward conversation with Skye. After another thirty seconds she decided to risk it, at least it would be something exciting.

"You think after this, it'll stop?" Celia asked as she sat next to Skye.

Skyes mind came back to her and she noticed the bored civet next to her. "What'll stop?"

"The constant running around, risking our lives and to just keep coming up with more and more problems." Celia replied. "The thrill kinda ends after the first two cycles."

"I hope so, it's like we're always stuck in second gear, like it hasn't been our day, week month, or hell even before the apocalypse it wasn't even my year." Skye sat back and looked at the ceiling.

"We have each other, I'll be there for you, always." Celia placed her head on skyes shoulder as they both enjoyed a quiet peaceful moment.

But it wouldn't last long...


	21. A journeys end

Jesse had found a piece of paper while looking in Gregory's bar for alcohol, it had plans written on it to overthrow Bellwether and assassinate her. He pocketed the plan and was on his way to show Bellwether.

Jesse walked up to bellwethers quarters and pounded hard on the door. "Wake up, you gotta see this!" He yelled waking the slumbering sheep.

Bellwether slowly walked up to the door, weary and groggy. "What!" She asked in an irritated voice as she swung open the door.

"I found something In Greg's bar, you have to see this!" Jesse shoved the plans into Bellwethers hands.

Bellwethers eyes widened as she read the plans made by gregory. She knew he was hiding something but conspiring with Nick's team, an attack from the inside out and assassinating her. It was a well laid out plan she had to admit.

"That liar!" Bellwether threw the plans to the ground in anger. "Guess that's what I get for trusting a predator."

"What should we do?" Jesse asked. "Should we just get a team and kill them?"

"No, get a team to ambush the church, I'll get the bunny and fox!" Bellwether ordered as she grabbed her weapon she used as punishment on live mammals, a base ball bat wrapped in Barbed wire.. "Bring their friends back to me, I'll make them all watch as their punished, one by one!"

In Gregory bar Judy and Nick were at rest breathing heavily after their round of "fun"

"Was it good for you?" Judy asked between breathes.

"I didn't know a bunny so small would be so aggressive." Nick was still sore and out of breath.

"We are good at multiplying." Judy gave nick a kiss.

"Judy, i-" nick started to admit his true feelings to Judy.

Just then the doors to the bar were heard being flung open and a bunch of voices yelling.

"Bell-" gregory tried to speak before a hail of gunfire gunned him down.

Footsteps approached the room nick and judy were in. Judy and Nick scrambled to get properly clothed and equiped for a fight. Bellwether kicked in the door before they could even find their pants.

"As if I didn't know!" Bellwether yelled in anger when she saw the bunny and fox.

"They were getting busy too by the looks of it!" A guard pointed out their lack of any clothing.

"Take them to the courtyard." Bellwether demanded her guards.

"Wait, what about our clothes?" Judy asked covering her areas.

"Where you're going, you don't need clothing." The guard grabbed Judy, pinned her arms behind her back and zip tied her hands.

Nick tried to charge at Bellwether but was tripped by a guard, kicked in the gut and had his hands zip tied as well.

"Nick?" Judy shook in fright with tears forming in her eyes.

"Don't worry, carrots." Nick tried his best to calm Judy through his own fear.

The duo were picked up and dragged by their hands through the camp, still naked as the day they were born. The entirety of the camp were gathered outside watching as the duo was set down in front of them. Most of the crowd was staring at them and the other was booing them.

"Ladies and gentlemen I have gathered two mammals responsible for crimes against our little camp." Bellwether announced infront of the crowd. "From assaulting one of our fellow survivors and being harboured by one of our people."

The crowd murmered as they saw Bellwether turn their attention towards nick. "To make matters worse one of them is an untamed predator."

"We're the bad guys!?" Nick yelled out. "You torture and kill innocent predators!"

"What are you gonna do now, kill us!?" Judy yelled out gaining Bellwethers attention.

"Now what we're going to do is wait for your two other friends from the church to join us." Bellwether replied. "Until then, the crowd can enjoy the sights!"

* * *

Bellwethers guards had found the church described in Gregory's plans, they posted up near the door and the team leader pounded on the wooden church doors.

"Can't wait to see that Savage cat put down!" One of the guards whispered loading his gun.

"Calm down, Bellwether wants them alive." The leader replied to his teammates bloodlust.

Inside Skye and Celia saw shadows outside the windows and heard faint whispers of their conversations.

"Is that our people?" Skye asked as she got to her feet.

Celia pressed up against the doors. "Did Gregory send you?" Celia yelled to the mammals on the other side.

"Uh, yes we are, just open the door." The mammal in the other side of the door yelled back. "Don't make us kick it in."

Celia opened the door with one hand and held a gun in the other, it was clear they're not who they say they are. As soon as the door creaked open it was kicked in from the other side.

Celia tried to pick herself off the ground but was grabbed in the leg by another mammal. Celia kicked the intruder as hard as she could but she was over powered and subdued.

Skye found her gun and opened fire on the Intruders. One of the intruders screamed in pain and grapsed his shoulder in pain. Skye took aim to the next intruder but was shot in the head before she could even put her finger on the trigger.

"SKYE!" Celia yelled in vain trying to squirm out of the intruders grasp as Skye fell dead to the floor.

One of the intruders grabbed his pistol and bashed celias face, leaving a nasty cut and almost knocking her out.

"Fucking hell, stupid fox!" The guard with a bullet wound in his shoulder yelled out clutching his bleeding shoulder.

"We can fix it at camp, come on!" The leader ordered as they left the church dragging Celia behind them.

Celia let out a steady stream of tears over skyes death, she never even got the chance to tell Skye she loves her, she'll never find another one like her again.

* * *

Back in camp the guards returned with Celia who was thrown in with Judy and Nick.

"Celia, are you alright!?" Nick saw Celia's red cheeks and tear stained face.

"They killed her, they killed Skye!" Celia shouted tears falling heavy from her eyes.

"Those scumbags killed her?!" Nick's rage burned as he turned to Bellwether who was chewing out one of the guards for killing Skye.

"She fought til the end, until they-" Celia didn't want to remember the whole scene. "But I couldn't, they got the jump on me, I fucked up."

"You didn't fuck anything up Celia, she went out fighting like she would've wanted to." Judy comforted Celia.

"Whatever happens, you're still our hero." Nick gave Celia a friendly nod to the distressed civet.

"Enough talking, now onto what the crowd has been waiting for." Bellwether grabbed her barbwire baseball bat and waved it in the survivors faces. The crowd cheered and yelled demands on who should die first. The lights in the camp illuminated the dried blood covering the bat.

"Kill the fox!" One prey called out.

"Get the cat first!" Jesse, who was standing in the front of the crowd yelled out.

"So many demands and so little time." Bellwether taunted. "Tell you what I'll close my eyes and randomly pick one of you." Bellwether closed her eyes and spun in circles. The barbwire cutting the survivors faces as it passed them.

"Judy whatever happens, I love you." Nick admitted knowing it could be his final moments.

"Nick dont talk like that we're gonna be fine!" Judy yelled back.

Bellwether stopped spinning and opened her eyes, the end of her bat was in Nick's face. "The bat has spoken." Bellwether reared back her swinging arm.

"Fuckin figures!" Nick sighed in frustration.

"Wait!" Judy yelled out in vain.

Judy and Celia gasped in horror as Bellwether reared back her swinging arm and bashed Nick's skull with the spiked bat. Nick fell to the ground with blood pouring out of the cut on his head. He slowly sat himself to his knees.

The crowd erupted into some gasps of horror and mostly cheers from the speciest preys.

"Look at that, HE'S TAKIN IT LIKE A CHAMP!" bellwether taunted to a broken and weakened nick.

"Suck...my...nuts!" Nick weakly gave one last snide comment to Bellwether.

Bellwether laughed at Nick's comment. "Did you hear that, he said suck my nuts!" She yelled to the crowd gaining some amusement on his behalf.

Nick used the last of his strength to place one last kiss on Judy's lips. Leaving his blood on Judy's lips. "Take care, carrots."

"What kind of heartless person would tear apart two love birds." Bellwether put her hand over her heart, while drawing back the bat with her other. "I would!" Bellwether bashed Nick's skull again, this time it finally killed him, Bellwether then gave Nick's head a few more whacks for good measure.

Judy ran over to Nick's body and cried over his death. "Nick, this cant be happening." The tears fell heavy from Judy's face.

"You're fucking pathetic!" Celia lashed out in rage. "Can't fight someone who can defend themselves?"

"My arent we a brave little kitty." Bellwether turned her attention from nick and got in Celias face. "I've got something special for you, Jesse get up here!"

Jesse rushed to Bellwether.. "Yes Bellwether!" He said in a soldier like voice.

"This is a personal vendetta, I'll let you take care of the little civet." Bellwether handed control to Jesse.

"It would be my pleasure." Jesse walked up to the brave civet. Now that he was getting the revenge he wanted it was hard to decide how he wanted to get it. He pulled out his knife, he wanted her to die slowly.

"Dont look, Judy." Celia begged to Judy. "I'll see you on the other-"

"Let's see how you like it when you get cut up!" Jesse grabbed Celia by the mouth cutting off her goodbye. Jesse took his knife and thrusted the knife into Celia's rib cage and threw her to the ground.

Celia fell to the floor next to Nick and gasped for air through her now collapsed lung. "Goodbye." Celia used the last breath of air before succumbing to blood loss.

Jesse went for another swing but was stopped by Bellwether. "We're not predators, we don't need to go overboard like she did." She pushed Jesse's knife hand down.

Jesse obeyed and stood down.

"I'm really sorry it had to be this way." Bellwether said in a calm voice to a grief stricken Judy. "You could've just stayed away and you and your friends would still be alive right now." Bellwether placed a hand on her face.

"Just do it." Judy begged as tears fell down her face and onto Nick's body she was hanging over.. "I just wanna be with Nick again."

"You're not as bad as them." Bellwether admitted pointing her bat to Nick and Celia's bodies. "You still betrayed us, but I'll make it quick for you." Bellwether dropped the bat to the floor and took aim at Judy's head with her handgun.

Judy closed her eyes and accepted her fate. This time she wasn't going to be saved by a hero like last time. "I'm coming nick, mom, dad, just hang on." Judy silently prayed to herself.

Bellwether shot Judy in the head giving her a quick, painless death without a chance of her reanimating. Judy would finally be in a better place with Nick and her loved ones.

The survivors journey has come to an end, without any one to stop her bellwether was now able to torture and kill any predators unlucky enough to cross her path. The new predator-free zootopia bellwether imagined would finally come to fruition.

The End.

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APRIL FOOLS! GOTCHA

Before you hunt me down and do what bellwether just did, yes i know this is taken from The walking dead and yes the real chapter 21 is in development and will only be slightly similar to this (minus the ending) I just couldn't pass up the perfect April fool's oppurtunity.


	22. Arc II ending The dawn breaks

Jesse had found a piece of paper when he was looking for alcohol in Gregory's bar, it was rolled up and hidden inside an empty bottle of cheap whiskey in the very bottom shelf. On it were Gregorys plans to overthrow Bellwether, the location of the church hideout and their attack on the inside to assassinate Bellwether.

Jesse grinned as he stuck the paper back in his pocket and drunkenly stumbled away from Gregorys bar to warn Bellwether. He walked into the old store bellwether had her quarters in. The door was locked and had a "do not disturb" sign hanging off the doorknob.

Jesse ignored the sign and pounded on the solid wood door. "Wake up, I found something you gotta see!" His yelling along with the pounding on solid wood woke bellwether.

Finally the door unlocked and swung open revealing a tired and irritable Bellwether with her eyes still half closed from exaustion. "What is it!?" She asked in a low voice.

Jesse took out Gregory's plans and shoved them into Bellwethers hands. She unfolded the paper and was shocked at what she saw. She knew gregory was hiding something but staging an attack and assassination from the inside of her own camp was something she would've never seen coming, It was a very well laid out plan she had to admit.

"That liar!" She crumbled and threw the plans to the floor in anger. "I guess that's what I get for trusting a predator." She started grabbing her weapons from her room.

"Just say the word and I'll drag him to you myself." Jesse tried calming Bellwether.

"Get a team to ambush the church and bring their friends to me alive!" Bellwether ordered with rage laced into her usually soft spoken tone.

"Alive, why not just kill them and be done with it?" He questioned.

"If there's any killing, I'll be the one doing it." Bellwether gave a short answer hurrying Jesse along.

"Yes Bellwether, right away!" Jesse quickly ran off to do as instructed before bellwether got even more frustrated.

* * *

Back in the church with Skye and Cecelia.

Skye and Celia still sat in one of the pews relaxing to the sounds of the night time ambience. Crickets and stray winds whistling against cracks in the glass barely filled in the silence between the two survivors.

Skye couldn't stop thinking about Cecelias behavior earlier, she didn't hate it but she was always taught growing up that same sex relationships were wrong. But she couldn't shake the feeling of wanting some sort of relationship with someone in the almost entirely dead world.

"You think we'll make it to the burrows? " Celia broke the awkward silence. "You think it'll even be safe there?"

"Why wouldn't we, Nicks gotten us this far right? " Skye could hear the doubt in Celia's voice.

"But we could still be dead by the end of all this." Celia's fears started breaking through her tough exterior.

Just as Celia said those words Skye could see black shadows creeping around outside the window and hear faint conversation. "Speak of the devil." She mumbled turning her attention to the dark figures.

"I don't remember Nick calling us on the walkie." Celia stood up and inched her way to the door and grabbed her gun on the way.

"Things must've gone bad over there." Skye followed Celia closely to the front door.

"Is someone out there?" Celia pressed her back against the door.

"Open the door, we were sent here by Gregory." The voice replied from the outside.

Celia recognized the low, gravely voice as the speciest ram from Bellwethers camp.

"Skye get your gun ready." Celia demanded as she prepared her own gun for a fight.

"But these guys-"before Skye could finish the wooden church doors were kicked in, sending wood chips flying and one of the doors to topple onto Celia.

Celia was knocked down but could still see three silhouettes in the door way. One of them, a familiar heavy set ram.

"Grab the fox, the cats mine!" Jesse commanded to his small group who ran right past Celia to get to Skye.

"Ready for round two you son of a bitch!?" Celia crawled from under the heavy door, picked herself off the ground and put her fists up for a fight.

Jesse grabbed a knife from his belt. "Lets see how you like it when your face is scratched up!" Jesse taunted as he charged with knife in hand swinging wildly at the unarmed civet.

Celia put her arms up in defense, only to immediately regret her ill timed defense when the knife swiped her wrist, cutting into her arm causing it to bleed and to drip blood to the floor.

Jesse wound up for another hit, but now Celia was angry and her reflexes were in overdrive, she caught the rams heavy hand mid strike and retaliated with a knee to the stomach that knocked the wind straight out of his lungs.

"This ain't my first battle!" Celia yelled winding up another hit.

"It'll be your last!" Jesse used the curved horns on his head to ram Celia In the stomach, knocking her to the ground. Jesse sat on top of the smaller built civet restricting her breathing and put his hoof over Celias throat and applied pressure cutting off her airway.

Celia kicked at Jesse's back and struggled as she started to see stars in her vision and her world fading to black. Jesse grinned at the suffering civet as he applied more pressure to the throat.

"No, Cecelia!" Skye screamed out before getting punched in the face by the other guards and kicked repeatedly as she fell.

Celia struggled harder as she gasped harder and harder for air In vain and her body was starting to give out.

"You must be Celia and Skye right?" A large deer with a still smoking handgun walked into the church with a few others in tow, he spoke in a tough masculine voice.

"Let me guess, y'all are the ones Gregory sent?" Skye asked as she wiped the blood from the cut on her cheek.

"Yes, my names Jules I met with your leader, the fox a few days ago." He introduced himself.

"Well you're here now, what are we waiting for?" Celia asked as she was ready for more action.

"Absolutely nothing." The deer shoved a gun into Celia's hand.

"Then let's slaughter a sheep." Celia loaded her handgun and urged Jules to lead the way.

* * *

In Gregory's bar Judy and Nick were at rest breathing heavily after their round of "fun"

"Was it good for you?" Judy asked between breathes.

"I didn't know a bunny so small would be so aggressive." Nick was still sore and out of breath.

"We are good at multiplying." Judy gave nick a kiss.

"Judy, i-" nick started to admit his true feelings to Judy.

Just then an alarm was heard ringing throughout the camp and the doors to the bar were kicked open by bellwethers guards.

Gregory swung open the door in a panic. "Guys, they know you're here, we-" a guard came up from behind and knocked Gregory out with a hit to the back of the skull with his gun.

"Don't fucking move!" The guard yelled to Nick and Judy who were still in bed not knowing what the hell was going on.

Bellwether walked into the room stepping over gregorys unconscious body.

"As if I didn't know, the two of you in my camp again!" She yelled in anger seeing the Fox and bunny in her camp, lying together.

"Looks like they were getting busy too by the looks of it!" one of the guards gawked at the survivors lack of clothing.

"Get them dressed and into the courtyard." Bellwether demanded as she left the room to prepare the courtyard.

"You heard her, time to get up!." The guard grabbed nicks arm and attempted to drag him out of bed.

"I know what I heard!" Nick broke out of the guards grip and got up and out of bed.

As they were getting properly dressed the male guards eyes were fixated at judys naked body the entire time. If they didn't have guns she would've beat them til they couldn't see.

After getting properly dressed the guards grabbed Judy and nicks arms and binder their hands together before dragging them out of gregorys bar and back into camp.

"Nick?" Judy whimpered in fear looking over to Nick with tear filled orbs. (That's for you lotharhex.)

"Don't worry Judy, I'll figure a way out of this! " Nick responded in his most soft comforting voice.

Everyone in camp had congregated outside, a mix of mostly prey with two or three predators. They cheered and booed as Nick and Judy were dragged through the camp by their necks.

"Go back to your forests little bunny!"

"Not so slick now are you fox!" The crowd hurled speciest insults to the two mammals.

They were taken to a small wooden platform that had been used many times before judging by the various bloodstains. Judy and Nick had their hands tied to a wooden pole rendering them at the mercy of what ever bellwether was going to do to them.

Bellwether waded through the crowd to get to the two survivors, she was carrying a small bag of metallic tools that clanked with each step. "Ladies and gentle mammals, I have here two traitors who planned on assassinating me and burning our community to the ground!" She yelled out to the gathered crowd, gaining an uproar of cheers.

"Well, what are you waiting for we got a crowd is that where your plan ends!?" Nick taunted gaining bellwethers attention.

Bellwether reached down and grabbed a pair of pliers with a blue grip from the small bag on the ground. "Such a loud mouth." Bellwether applied pressure to the blue grips making the metal pliers clamp onto one of nicks upper canine teeth. Bellwether yanked her hand down hard and fast dislodging the tooth from nicks gums.

Nick screamed in pain as his gums bled and felt like they had a hot iron pressed on them.

"Lets see you be slick with a mouth full of blood." Bellwether threw the tooth to the ground.

Nick finally stopped screaming and growled as blood ran from the gap in his gums to his lower lip.

Bellwether grinned with sadistic satiafaction, she loved watching the predators that used to push her around grovel in pain.

"One down, three to go." Bellwether forced Nick's mouth open and reached for the next tooth in Nick's mouth.

Just as Bellwether set the iron grips on Nicks next tooth, Gunshots bursted through the air, halting Bellwether and quieting the crowd who looked around for the source.

Bellwether urged an armed member of the crowd to investigate. The armed mammal cautiously approached the main gate, but before he could open the door it was kicked in on the unsuspecting mammal by Cecelia.

"You're right, that is fun to do." Celia walked into camp gun drawn.

"Focus on the mission, Cecelia." Jules replied walking into Bellwethers camp with a shotgun drawn and aimed at Bellwether s direction.

"You again, I see you brought the kitty with you as well!" Bellwethers voice turned low and venomous.

"We're just here for our friends, hand them over and surrender if you don't want to be killed!" Skye announced as she and Jules walked into camp.

"That sounded like a threat and i don't take kindly to threats against my people! " Bellwether was enraged to see Skye and Celia lived.

"Let's not forget what you did to my people too, you took some of my men and now I need them returned to me, unharmed!" Jules chimed in raising his gun.

"You too, Jules?" Bellwether took notice of the deer she had done business with before. "If you must know those predators I took made nice decorations for my corpse barrier! "

Guards came from around every corner and ran to Bellwethers aid, they formed a line in front of bellwether with an arsenal of machine guns.

Jules, in a fit of anger opened fire and killed one of bellwethers guards. "Then consider this your payback!" He screamed firing shots.

Nick used the distraction to rear his head back and bite Bellwether in the head with his remaining teeth, tearing a chunk of fur and some flesh off with it. Bellwether retreated deeper into camp leaving behind a trail of blood.

An all out war had begun against Bellwethers group and Nicks team. While Nick and Judy were still tied to the same wooden posts missing stray bullets by luck.

One of Bellwethers team ran up and held a gun to Judy's face intending to execute her himself. Just as he placed his finger on the trigger a bullet flew through his skull, as his body fell a familiar figure revealed itself. A weasel with orange fur and old riot armor holding a smoking gun.

"Weasleton?" Nick cocked his head in confusion. "You came back just for us?"

"No, but the enemy of my enemy is my friend." Weasleton cut the ropes binding Judy and Nicks wrists.

Nick and Judy ran through camp to get back to the rest of the team, they saw Skye hiding behind a small building taking potshots at the enemies.

Bullets whizzed through the air as Judy and Nick sprinted, and dove behind the building Skye was taking cover behind.

"Welcome back, boss." Skye greeted before taking another shot from behind cover.

"Save the formalities for after the fight." Nick said pressing up against cover. "Where's Celia?" He asked.

"She and that deer, Jules spilt up to cover more ground." Skye answered Ponting to gregory's bar. "Cecelia went to the bar for better protection."

"I can cover you, just make a run for it!" Weasleton ran up to their cover.

"Me and Judy will go, stay out here and deal with any zombies or guards." Nick said taking a look around the corner to see how many enemies stood in their way. There were only a handful of guards left, scrambling for better cover giving Nick and Judy a wide opening.

"Try not to die." Weasleton snidely remarked.

"That kinda depends on you now doesn't it?" Nick replied as he took a running stance.

Both Nick and Judy made a mad dash for the bar, any guard left alive that tried to shoot at them were quickly neutralized by Skye or Weasleton.

Nick raced to the bar doors and shoved them open with his full strength shattering the glass on the door.

Judy was slower than the quick fox, she pushed her body to the extreme to reach the door in time. She finally reached the destination and dove through the broken glass pane and landed on a pile of glass inside.

"You alright?" Nick asked as Judy picked pieces of glass from her arm and knee.

"I'm still alive." Judy stood to her feet.

"Not for much longer!" Bellwether had been hiding out inside the bar holding Celia at gunpoint.

"Great." Nick sighed knowing it was too easy.

"Glad you could join the party." Celia welcomed Nick as best she could being held at gun point.

"I knew you'd come back here, this is where you always come, it's so predictable. " Bellwether seemed unhinged her rage made her hand shake and her left eye was twitching.

"We kinda tend to do that alot." Nick admitted as he put his hand up in surrender.

There were zombies outside flooding the now open gates. One of Skye's gunshots came through the window and missed Bellwether by an inch, causing her to flinch and duck.

Celia smashed the back of her head against Bellwethers face and slipped away to Nicks side. Bellwether growled in anger as she gripped her face in pain.

"Go help Skye with the zombie problem, the sheep's mine!" Judy commanded Nick for once.

"You're serious, Nick?" Cecelia turned to Nick hoping he'd take sense into Judy.

"Ok Judy, this is your fight." Nick gave the fight to Judy. "Come on Celia, we have a zombie problem to fix." He and Celia left the bar to assist skye.

Bellwether rushed to kill the fleeing fox and civet, but Judy stepped in front of her and punched Bellwether square in the face, knocking her to the ground.

As Judy went to jump on top of Bellwether she was grabbed by the ankles and kicked in the stomach by Bellwether hard enough to stagger Judy and allow Bellwether to get up to her feet again.

Bellwether grabbed Judy by the neck and smashed her head against the wooden bar counter before throwing the dazed bunny to the ground.

Bellwether reached behind the bar and pulled out a massive bottle full of clear alcohol, popped the top off and shoved the bottle into Judy's mouth.

Judy coughed and gagged as every gasp for air forced more alcohol down her throat. Judy struggled and tried to pull the bottle away only for bellwether to put more pressure on the bottle

"What a waste of good alcohol." Judy heard a familiar voice say and saw a shadow shove bellwether off of her.

Judy got herself to her knees and threw up the alcohol that was forced down her throat. She looked over to see the Cheetah, Gregory pushing Bellwether up against a wall and throwing her to the ground.

"You're ok, thank Christ." Gregory ran to Judy and offered his hand.

Judy took Gregorys hand and got back to her feet. "I'm glad to see you." Judy slurred her words as the alcohol started to get to her.

"I'm glad you guys fought back and actually won." Gregory supported Judy by the arm.

"It's not over yet." Judy let go of Gregory's arm and reached for the glass bottle of alcohol on the floor, she picked it up and smashed it leaving a bottle with sharp edges.

Judy walked up to Bellwether who was on the floor still trying to pick herself up. Judy grabbed Bellwether by the collar of her shirt and drove the broken bottle into Bellwethers knee, immobilizing her for what Judy had in mind next.

"Well, what are you waiting for next?" Gregory asked confused as to why judy didn't just end her there.

"I'm not ending it like this." Judy ripped the glass bottle from Bellwethers leg. "I don't want to get used to cold blooded killing."

"How do you think we should get rid of her? " Gregory asked Judy.

The gunshots and zombies outside gave Judy an idea, she wouldn't want to kill Bellwether herself but the zombies could take care of her.

"I have an idea, get her up." Judy ordered Gregory grabbing Bellwethers left arm.

"Hope you're sure about this." Gregory grabbed Bellwethers right arm and dragged bellwether back to the courtyard from earlier.

"What are you doing, let's finish this!" Bellwether kicked and squirmed in Judy's grip.

"Not so fun when you're getting dragged through camp now?" Gregory shut bellwether up and applied pressure to her right arm.

Judy approached the stage where she and Nick had been tied up earlier. Judy wrapped bellwethers arm around the small wooden pole and grabbed the cut rope on the ground and re-tied them around bellwether wrist.

Gregory gave Judy Bellwethers right arm and tied the rope around her right wrist. Bellwether struggled and pulled trying to escape.

"So, now what?" Gregory asked as he looked upon his enemy now at their mercy.

"Carrots, what are you doing? " Nick walked over to see what was going on.

"It's like you said, don't get used to killing." Judy unholstered her gun. "So I'm not going to kill her. " Judy shot her gun in the air and drew the attention of the last remaining zombies in camp.

"Think about what you're doing, this is torture!" Gregory yelled as he realized Judy's plan.

"This is what she deserves." Jules simply said taking a cigarette from his coat and lighting it. "I say let the rabbit do as she sees fit."

"But is indirect murder really any better?" Skye questioned as the zombies for closer and closer to bellwether.

"Better than letting her live, that's good enough for me." Celia chimed in her final thoughts.

Bellwether screamed and squirmed as the zombies approached and started biting and tearing into her. Judy turned her head away to shield herself from the harsh view, it was the least she could do for her mental sanity.

Skye on the other hand couldn't stand the sight and shot the few remaining zombies surrounding bellwether before turning the gun to the sheep who was still clinging to life through a broken bloodied, body and ended her misery.

The last remaining guards and non hostile survivors of Bellwethers camp came out of hiding in their quarters and back out into the courtyard.

The guards threw down their weapons and put their hands up in surrender. The civilians and predators just sat in silence waiting for a response from nicks team.

"This camp is under new management!" Jules stepped up and announced to the few remaining survivors. "Set aside your loyalty for bellwether and join us!"

Remaining guards nodded in approval and kicked their weapons over to Jules to show they're serious.

"This reminds me, what will we call our new camp?" Gregory asked noticing they didn't plan a name for the camp of they won. "I doubt Bellwethers camp will go over well."

"How about New-Topia?" Nick suggested his camp name.

"Hey, that's actually got a nice ring to it." Gregory liked the name. "Alright it's settled, from now on we will be known as New-Topia." He announced to the small crowd.

"So I figure with this all over you don't wanna be around for clean up?" Gregory grabbed a key from his pocket.

"We have places we need to be." Nick replied. "But if you need help take this and ask for Eli." Nick gave Gregory the radio Eli gave him when he left New-Topia.

"Thank you and since you've helped us, I wanna help you." Gregory pocketed the radio and gave Nick the small metal key.

"What's this for?" Nick held up the small, silver key to the sun creating a small shimmer.

"Your reward, there's some old supplies in that garage over there, take them." Gregory pointed to an auto shop with a closed door right across the street from camp.

"Sure you wanna give something like that away?" Nick asked making sure Gregory was serious.

"You deserve it, we predators have to stick together right?" Gregory waved Nick off. "Give us a good name out there, Nick." He walked into camp back to Jules to plan what's next for *New-topia*

Weaselton walked out of the gates and to Nicks team. "You got room in the group for a tag along?" He asked knowing he wouldn't exactly be welcomed back in camp.

"Why not just be with them, Bellwethers gone." Nick asked confused to why Weaselton wants to travel with them.

"I know but it wasn't just Bellwether who had a problem with me, even Gregory thinks it'll be better if I was with you." Weasleton waited for Nicks answer.

"I guess we have no choice." Judy looked over to Weaselton with sympathetic eyes.

"Just don't try to rob us again and remember who's in charge." Nick gave Weasleton a spot in the group.

"Guess we should get going then." Weasleton turned to walk to the garage , leaving behind the new, New-Topia.

"Think you did the right thing back there with Bellwether, Judy?" Skye asked judy hoping she wasn't turning into a complete maniac.

"It only takes one dead scumbag to make this world a better place." Judy responded in her natural laid back voice. "It was better this way."

With an old auto garage filled with supplies compliments of gregory and a clearer goal ahead of them the team sets out on their next destination. The rural communities of the tri-county burrows. In arc III (Hopefully) coming soon.

(Oh and yes I know the ending is kinda rushed a little but it's 1:04 AM at the time of writing so I had to make small sacrifices to length for my mental sanity. I'm also going to make arc 3 different from the first two, it won't have the repeated evil survivor camp trope, so if you're disappointed with arc II don't be discouraged, I'm planning on making arc III way better.)


	23. Arc II epilogue

Judy's journal,entry #4. I can't believe the last few weeks, since I found Nick my post-apocalypse life has taken a turn for the dramatic. So as it turns out Bellwether was a speciest psyco who tried to have my friends killed for defending themselves against a violent ram.

Just when we thought we'd have to face the threat alone a saviour named Gregory, who was the only other predator in camp helped us dethrone Bellwether. Sometimes I think back on how I fed her to a crowd of zombies and wonder if it was the right thing, then I remember her crimes and it doesn't seem so unfitting, especially considering she probably has done the same thing in the past.

After a hard fought battle we ended up leaving the new *new-topia* to its new leaders and took Weaselton, a thief with us. (Still not sure what Nick was thinking, but his judgement hasn't killed us.)

Now we walk the long road between Zootopia and Bunny Burrow. Please don't be dead, please!

Judy once again closed the small notebook and stuffed it inside the pack.

Nick and the rest of the team walked in a close huddle in the middle of the night. They had moved far from the cities and hit the more rural areas of Zootopia, close to the south.

Nick had finished his 3rd protein bar from the bags of supplies given to them by Gregory and threw the empty wrapper to the ground.

"Who in the hell, puts a county line , through twenty miles of goddamn forests?" Celia asked as she catched her breath from the long walking time.

"Nick are you sure we can't take a small rest?" Judy asked concerned for Nick's well-being.

"Don't worry, Carrots I'll be fine." Nicks sentence was spaced out a bit over each word. "We'll be there by sunrise."

"You're going through food like you're about to hibernate, slick." Judy took the bag of food from Nick and sling it on top of the supply bag she was carrying. " you should at least catch your breath. "

"I wouldn't mind stopping for a breather." Skye chimed into the conversation.

Nick sighed as he found himself once again outvoted by the women of the group. "Fine, just find an abandoned car or something, out in the open is never ok."

There were plenty of abandoned cars for them to take a rest in, Judy took a seat in the back of an old pickup truck that was strikingly similar to the ones her father had in his farm, minus the hopps family farm logo.

Cecelia and Skye were leaning up against an old sedan meant for taller drivers like moose or deer. Weaselton stood a distance away from them, he was never really good with ladies anyway.

"What's the deal with that weasel anyway?" Celia whispered to Skye. "He's kinda an asshole."

"I think him and Nick knew each other from before." Skye whispered back. "Guess Nick sees something we don't."

"Did he forget he tried to rob us four days ago?" Celia retorted with a hint of anger. "I can play nice but Ill keep an eye on the little thief." Celia stared at Weaselton who just kept his head tilted towards the ground.

"I guess if it helps." Skye looked back up to the starry sky.

Nick had seemingly boundless energy and stood ahead looking out for any danger in the streets or nearby forested areas.

"Enjoying the view?" Judy's voice came out of nowhere and caught Nick off guard.

"I'm on overwatch right now, forests may look nice but they're an ambushers dream come true." Nick replied in his usual survivors point of view.

"We're so close now, Nick." Judy said glad she made it this far. "Soon it'll be nothing but carrot farming and country hospitality."

"But for now we gotta be keen, we're out in the open without the advantages of the city." Nick brought Judy back to the now before she got too optimistic.

"Don't worry, with you I'm sure we'll get there in one piece." Judy rested up against Nick's arm.

"We gotta scout around a little bit, can you check around the corner and see if there's anything living or dead." Nick got back into survivor mode.

"If it'll make you feel safer I guess." Judy said disappointed she can't ever get Nick to kick back and relax.

"I could actually use some help, you know this area better than I do, can you trek along this road and see if there's anything that can tell us where we're at?" Nick asked.

"Down there, alone?" Judy asked.

"I'll keep you covered, Carrots." Nick reassured Judy by pulling out his scoped rifle. "Here take these too." He handed Judy a pair of binoculars from his bag.

Judy walked down the street to the left of Nick and continued down it, attempting to see or hear anything from behind the darkness. The wilderness didn't have the advantages of streetlights or anything like that.

"You see anything?" Nick yelled back over to Judy.

"Not yet, I'll keep looking though." Judy reached for the binoculars and peeked through them. The magnified field of view helped Judy see a structure that vaguely looked like a bridge through the darkness.

"Keep me posted." Nick replied.

"I think there's a bridge here or something, it might be what we're looking for!" Judy yelled, gaining no answer from Nick. "Nick!?"

"Listen, just put the damn gun down!" She heard Nick yell.

"Then do as he says!" She heard another voice chime in.

"Yea right and have you execute us!" Weaselton yelled out.

Judy ran as fast as she could back to Nick and the team, as she rounded the corner she saw Nick, Celia, Skye and Weaselton lined up left to right with their paws in the air.

"Listen, this doesn't have to go down like this!" Skye yelled to the unknown people.

"We don't know you, you could be killers for all we know!" Judy heard a familiar female voice yell out.

"If we wanted to kill you we'd have done it already!" Weaselton once again shouted.

"Is that a threat?" The male voice screamed.

"We're not anyone dangerous, put the damn gun down!" Celia exclaimed.

Once Judy got close enough to Nick and the team to see the mammals threatening them through the darkness her mouth dropped open in shock and her heart raced. "I thought you were dead!"

*to be continued in Arc III*


	24. Country roads

Judy's mouth hung wide open, her heart raced and tears welled up in her eyes. A Rabbit dressed in overalls and a trucker hat pointed a rifle at Nick and the group. and a bunny wearing a plad button up, jeans and a necklace with a tucked in pendant.

"Mom, Dad?" Judy finally uttered with a cracking voice.

As soon as he heard Judy's sweet voice Judy's dad lowered his gun and his expression matched both Judy's and Judy's mom. Judy's father lowered his rifle to the ground as his wide eyes stared a hole through judy.

"Oh my God!" The rabbit dropped his rifle to his side and his face softened.

"Wait, you know these people?" Nick asked as the tension dropped slightly.

"I-" before Judy could utter another word both her mom and dad rushed and hugged her tightly. Judy struggled to breathe through their iron grip.

"What are you guys doing here?" Judy finally caught enough air to ask.

"We were just dealing with these trespassers here. " Stu, Judy's father released Judy, jumped back up and pointed his gun back at Nick and the team.

"Dad, stop these are my friends!" Judy stood in front of the rifle, stopping her father from doing anything rash.

"They're your friends, but they're..." Stu's sentence was cut off .

"Stu!" Bonnie, Judy's mother scolded. "You must be tired, why don't you come with us?"

"Bonnie, we hardly know them!" Stu grabbed Bonnies arm and whispered in her ear. "How can we be sure they're trustworthy?"

"Judy seems to like them, do we need any more reason?" Bonnie reasoned in a hushed voice .

"You sure you guys don't mind?" Nick spoke up to the quietly arguing rabbits.

"We insist, it's the least we can do for the people who brought our daughter back." Bonnie gave one last look to Stu who backed down.

"Follow me." Stu accepted reluctantly and lead them

Stu lead them through the barely lit country roads, relying on his limited sight and superior hearing to guide him.

Bonnie walked up to Nick. "I'm Bonnie." She introduced herself.

"I'm Nick, I've been leading this group since downtown." He introduced himself.

"Don't mind my husband, Stu, ever since the outbreak he's been on edge." Bonnie walked adjacent to Nick. "How did you and Judy meet?"

"There was a couple of zombies who got the jump on her, I saved her and offered her a place in my camp, we've been together ever since."

"If we're introducing ourselves, my names Skye, I'm kinda the group's mediator and mechanical expert." Skye approached Bonnie and Nick.

Bonnie was nervous to see two foxes traveling in the same group, not that she'd mind but Stu on the other hand would have some objections. "If you're good with mechanics you'll for right in." Bonnie pushed back her worry.

"I'm Cecelia, but you can just call me celia." Celia introduced her self as well. "I'm also kinda the muscle of the group."

"Nice to meet you all, what're y'all doing in this stretch of the woods? " Bonnie asked.

"We were just traveling through, I didn't think we'd find live people " Nick replied not giving away too much of his plan.

"I guess it's a good thing you found us then, we can always use more people, especially since the walkers came." Bonnie replied.

"Walkers?" Skye asked,confused.

"Y'know, the monsters that eat people, all they do is walk and eat." Bonnie explained. "What do you call them?"

"Zombies, lurkers, undead. " Nick listed off.

"Guess we can add walkers to the list then." Bonnie stopped Nick before he listed off anymore.

There was a bridge in the distant fog with an old wood sign that had the words "Welcome to Deerbrooke county." Written in fading paint.

"Alright, we're almost home, or the closest to it we have." Stu reported to Bonnie in a relieved tone.

"Deerbrooke, that's how far you've traveled?" Judy asked, surprised at the distance they still had ahead of them.

"We tried going into the city to find you but the military wasn't letting anyone in or out, we tried going back, but our truck broke down and we couldn't fix the thing, not many mechanics or auto shops in this part of town and we couldn't fight off the walkers." Bonnie explained.

"So you've been stuck here this whole time?" Judy asked.

"Well, only since the first week this all started." Bonnie remembered the starting days and how scared she was for Judy's well being.

"But looks like our prayers have been answered, it's good to finally have you back." Stu replied putting a hand on Judy's shoulder.

"I had some help from some friends, I'm glad to have you guys back too." Judy said in the happiest tune she's had since the out break.

Stu and the team stood in front of the bridge connecting the border between south west Zootopia and one of the tri-state counties, Deerbrooke.

"Be careful, we haven't had this many mammals all at once in this bridge." Stu warned The group taking his first stepstep on The familiar bridge.

The old wooden bridge creaked loudly with every step taken by every single survivor, below the sound of a running creek have an almost tranquil sound to an otherwise unsettling area.

Just as Weaelton started making his way across he felt a cold hand touch and grip his forearm. Weaselton kicked and screamed gaining the attention of the others as a deer zombie with a chain and collar, connected to the railing creeped over the edges of the bridge.

"Wait!" Stu yelled out as Weaselton reached for his handgun. Stu kicked the zombie back down into the creek.

"Sorry, that was just a guard zombie." Stu explained to the angry looking weasel.

"Guards?" Skye asked .

"They sneak up on unsuspecting intruders. " Stu motioned towards the team.

"Well unless the guard comes up and apologizes for almost dragging me into a creek i don't really care for him." Weaelton snidely said.

"You're using zombies as guards?" Nick asked Stu before Weaselton got more angry.

"When we came here only a few people were left, when they eventually died I put them to work defending our makeshift home." Stu explained to a confused Nick.

"Least they won't complain about wages." Celia added a hint of her usual wit.

"I know it ain't ideal, but deep down its still them. " Stu urged the team to move on.

"So what happened to the burrows?" Judy asked looking once again at the aged picture of her family before she left.

"We left the oldest ones in charge, it took everything just for us to get this far and we don't have the means to get that far back." Stu admitted as he peeked at what Judy held in her paws.

"But don't worry, im sure they're doing fine, there isn't many zombies around here and I'm sure they can look after themselves." Bonnie tried to calm what doubt might be in Judy's head.

Up ahead a road sign welcomed them to deerbrooke county's first town. "Podunk, population-" the number on the sign had been scratched out.

"This is the place, watch out for walkers, some how there are still some left." Stu advised to an already prepared team.

"Story of our life." Nick quipped under his breath.

Up near the town's entrance was a travelers motel, kept in moderate condition from earlier survivors.

Stu checked around and peered inside of one of the rooms windows, inside he could see a small room with a large bed in the middle, a small kitchen with a pot rested on top of a small hot plate.

"This one's our room, the doors are unlocked here so don't be a stranger." Stu pointed to the other small rooms around.

"Thanks, we'll be up early tomorrow." Nick left Judy with her family and went for an unlocked hotel room.

Nick found himself a room only two doors down from Judy's room, it was pretty standard for a motel room, beige walls with a modern but broken tv hung on the walls, a bed built for larger species like wolves or large cats. It was perfect for just one Fox and maybe Bunny.

Nick curled into bed waiting for the sweet release of rest. Until he heard a knock at his door. Nick sighed as he got up and swing open the door to reveal Weaselton.

"Is there something wrong?" Nick asked tiredly.

"I need to talk to you about something." Weaselton let himself in.

"Knowing you it's less of a talk and more of a list of complaints." Nick jested as he shut the door behind Weaselton

"I think in this situation complaints become worries." Weaselton beushed off Nick's wit. "These people we found, Judy's parents, they seem kinda off."

"How so?" Nick asked sitting on the edge of his bed.

"Are you blind, haven't you noticed they held us at gunpoint with no explanation, and the old guy, one of the only other prey, seems to treat us weird." Weaselton told Nick.

"It's been awhile since they've seen their daughter, and with a group of strangers, give them time, they'll warm up to us." Nick advised not wanting any violence.

"I'll try, Nick." Weaselton replied half submissively. "But what about for now?"

"For now, It's getting pretty late,, we'll talk more tomorrow." Nick motioned towards the door.

"Alright, I can take a hint." Weaselton got up and walked towards the door.

The rest of the night for Nick was pretty lonely, he lie in bed hoping Judy would come back along and spend the night. Unfortunately, Nick had to spend this night alone.

* * *

Judy was still up with her family until the late hours of the morning, they talked and exchanged stories of their experiences since the Apocalypse.

"So, Judy, how'd you meet your friends?" Bonnie asked out of curiosity. "You seem to be close to them."

"Nick saved me a few months back and introduced me to his camp." Judy explained thinking back on how far she came, from an unprepared loner to a slightly more prepared survivalist. "He helped me more that anyone has in years."

"That's good, he seems like a good person." Bonnie replied.

"I don't trust him." Stu bittery replied. "I was skeptical of foxes before, but now they'll have to act shiftier just to survive."

"She just said he helped her." Bonnie retorted.

"It won't mean much when he gets desperate or when his instincts kick in." Stu argued back.

"Don't mind him, he's just been all stirred up since this all started." Bonnie said hoping Judy wasn't offended.

"I just don't want her to get hurt is all, I'm being mindful." Stu chimed in.

"That's my father alright, I wouldn't want it any other way." Judy laughed it off but felt uneasy inside.

"What about your other friends?" Bonnie changed the subject.

"Cecelia and Skye were part of an old camp, run by some psycopath, we managed to kill him with their help and get away." Judy replied hoping her dad didnt have anything to add to that.

"Sounds scary, but it's just like you to put yourself on the line for others." Bonnie praised. "With their help we can get back home."

"Wait, the burrows, that's where we're headed!" Judy exclaimed. "We can all travel together."

Judy could see her fathers face scowl at the idea. But thankfully he kept his peace for now.

"That sounds perfect, we'll return as a family." Bonnie optimistically replied.

After talking for a few more minutes, Judy and her parents decided to finally rest, they lay together in their oversized, but comfortable bed, in what felt like ages Judy finally felt a massive hope for the future.


End file.
